A boring day?
by Dendey
Summary: Well, Dive´s bored and he´s gonna help Tanya enhance the Mighgrator AND the Aerowing, but there´s also something else going on. Duke´s gonna find out first though...
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Hello everybody! This is my first story, written in English. This is not my native language and I really do hope you can put up with my grammar or some spelling mistakes I might have put in there. This is also my very first MD fic and blimey it´s been ages since I last saw the episodes on tv. Well, I do remember Tanya´s habit of stuttering, when agitated i believe, but I´m gonna cut that out of the story, ´cause I prefer her the way I wrote her before I remembered her habit and ´cause of that I implied another habit to her, but you´ll see that. Besides I have no map of the pond, so please bear with me if I make up their place a bit different then you know it from the series. Another one: I´m pretty unsure of the spelling of the Mighgrator, ´cause I just know it like that from the german reading, but to be honest I always expected it to be the Migrator, so I´m really pissed at myself that I just have no idea how to write it, so I just take the longer version. Nearly the same with the Aerowing, I always imagined it to be the 'Arrowwing', before reading something on a german page, so now I decided to take the shorter version this time. Why I´m telling you all this? I mean who am I kidding, I´m clinging to the hope that someone´s gonna take pitty on me and give´s me a review if just for telling me the correct spelling.

As I don´t have anything important to tell you anymore...now I´d say: **Let the story begin!**

THANKS to my first ever Reviewer on LIASHI! Thanks a lot for your Review, it really helped me, so here it is, the corrected version! AND it´s longer than before!

A boring day ...?...

Chapter #1#

It was a rather boring day, really. He´d already been in the mall 3 times and it was just noon, for crying out loud!

Wildwing had woken him up at 6 (sharp) for practice, knowing that his 'lil bro' wouldn´t be able to go back to sleep after practice was finished, around 8:10 am.

Since then Nosedive was trying to keep himself busy, but alas it just didn´t work to be busy while he knew that there wouldn´t be any new comics for him to read until next week and he already ran out of new comics yesterday night at 9 pm!

Now he was sure about a thought which crossed his mind at 6:03 am this morning, while getting into the shower. Wing´s cruel... and that was final.

Nosedive lay on the couch in front of the tv, which was only showing reruns of really boring cartoons, in the ready room of the pond and he was restless, energetic, somehow anxious, but also depressed. He was just an inch before the point at which he would go to Tanya, out of his own free will, to ask her if he could help her fix anything. Normally he would just help Tanya after complaining about it, ´cause his 'big bro' would have made him do so, but now he was just too bored to lay on the couch any longer, regardless of what he would have to do to keep the boredom at bay.

So he finally got up, switched off the tv and started his little journey towards the hangar where, no doubt, Tanya would be struggling with her work to complete the installation of the new amplified shields for the 'Aerowing' and the 'Migrator'.

Stepping through the door, which slid aside while he approached, he instantly sighted Tanya fumbling with her worktools. She lay under the motor of the Migrator cursing like there was no tomorrow. I´m sure Wing would freak out if I swore like this! He would bench me for the next year if we weren´t one player down without me. "Hey Tauny what´s up?" he called, causing Tanya to hit her head.

"OUCH! HELL! Is that you Nosedive?"

"Sure it´s me, who else would be crazy enough to disturb you, while your working and swearing at your work like you wouldn´t know the results of your enhancements. But hey as you do know what your doing..." he trailed off, noticing the look of pure astonishment he received from Tanya. He held up his hands in defensive mode. "Whoa, whoa! One lil´ mo´! You do know what your doing, don´t you?" He quaked, remembering the last time Tanya did something 'experimental', as she had called it, resulting in the new hangar in which he now stood.

"Oh yeah, I´m just enhancing the speed of the Migrator, something I put off for too long now."

"That´s great Tauny! I remember Draggy overtaking us last week."

"See, that´s what made me do this today. Now why are you here? Did Wildwing send you to fetch me for practice, again? I thought I would have some time ´till then..."

"No, he didn´t. I just wanted to ask if I might help you enhance the Migrator a bit. You remember you wanted to install the amplified shields today, don´t you?" he asked unsure.

"Well I already did that, but if you want to help you might help me, if you could think of a way to enhance the motor while keeping the same petrol consumption, along with adding new tires, which would be required as we need the best there are for maximum grip, so the Migrator would still be safe, but a hell of a lot faster."

"You do realize, that you are swearing?"

"Nobody knows that I swear while constructing, besides you. And I don´t think you would want your brother to know where a part of your inspiration comes from. Otherwise the hangar might soon be out of bounds for you."

"Awww Tauwny. You know I would never tell Wing about your lil´ habit while constructing."

"Another problem solved. So would you remove the rest of the motor while I look for new tires via the internetshop?"

"Sure, whatever you want."

3 Hour of work later the Migrator AND the Aerowing were ready to be tested. And after ten minutes, in which Dive and Tanya had cleaned the hangar and carried every tool they had needed back to its rightful place, they heared the siren from Drake One. They ran into the RecRoom to find their teammates already standing before the computer, watching the screen with interest and anticipation.

T: "Some strange energie detection in the forest near the mall."

W: "Exactly our first landingplace on this planet!" exclaimed Wildwing after looking at the coordinates. "Let´s check this out, Ducks. We´ll use the Migrator." He told them, running down the last corridor towards the hangar.

N: "Good we were ready in time, huh?" Dive asked Tanya, once she was level with him.

T: "S´pose." She told him, out of breath.

They filled into the Migrator, Dive taking the driversseat and letting the machines roar to life, before speeding off towards the edge of the forest.

He carefully maneuvered through the trees, until they were 50 yards from the location. Wildwing told everybody to leave the Migrator, but wanted Dive to remember the way the best he could, so it wouldn´t take him too long, to go back and recollect the Migrator, if the need for 'a lil´ backup' arose. Nosedive looked around carefully while moving his way with the others. He even looked back from time to time, to better recognise the route back. They arrived to hide behind some shrubs, so Seige and Chameleon wouldn´t see them.

Ch: "What was it?"

Si: "The sensors tell it to be 2 Ducks and a human."

Ch: "Leaving? Or arriving?"

Si: "I can´t tell, maybe it was just their car exploding."

Ch: "Why their car?"

Si: "´Cause they made a picnic?"

Ch: "You shouldn´t tell that to the boss when he asks you. He can be really nasty about picnics, if you remember last month."

Si: "Yeah. Maybe we shouldn´t tell him of the energetical interruption at all. No one says it was from a gateway, after all."

Ch: "I think so. Let´s go back, before he thinks us missing." And with that Chameleon went first.

Siege disappearing just a second later.

The Ducks threw puzzled looks at each other. Wildwing ordered them to search the place within a radius of 50 feet, just to be on the save side.

After an hours work, without finding anything suspicious they broke off the search to return to the pond.

Once there they ran into Phil and without question he dragged them away, to let them sign 'just some autographs' for their fan´s.

This turned out to be a 5 hour long autographsession, after which Duke was ready to kill Phil and Dive had no energy what so ever left in his hands, ´cause they´ve been stressed enough from his work with Tanya. Even Grin seemed to be in a bad mood and Mallory couldn´t help it to let Phil fall down flat onto his nose, after tipping accidentally, as if anyone of the team believed that, over her right foot. Then Phil´s phone rang and after he exclaimed a joyful cry, they let him scurry off towards his new girlfriend, as they assumed, without complaint.

Just after a light dinner, Wildwing had tried to make sure everyone got enough vitamines, so he had decided to make a big bowl of salad, (Nosedive mumbled that he was a fast food teenager, not a vegetarian like Mallory, he just received a glare for that, so Mallory had to be pretty exhausted.) the alarm went off once more, so they left the table in a hurry.

Ten minutes later they arrived in an old storagehouse (warehouse). The backdoor was open, thankfully, so they slipped into the darkness of the building. Not even two minutes later they were battling with the Saurians. Duke just crashed two Drones, when he saw a Saurianlaser aimed at his heart, he had no time to react. But a splitsecond before Siege shot, he was tackled from a shadow and fell to the side, so his laser just nearly missed Duke´s right shoulder.

The Shadow vanished into the darkness, but Duke heard it jumping, so he looked up, to see the shadow beneath an open window, climbing through it and running along the roof. Duke followed, after splitting three Drones on his way, to see the rooftop empty, as well as the surrounding rooftops. He sighed and climbed down to his successful teammates. The Drones were gone, even the damaged ones and they were into the middle of the speculation, which target Dragaunus had in mind this time, when Duke arrived.

W: "You´re pale and you look troubled. What happend?" Wildwing noticed him at once, but he was just so confused, that he shook his head in the negative, mumbling 'nothing' when he passed him on his way out. He waited in the Migrator, thinking, stretched out over two backseats, in a rather uncomfortable looking position. But actually he felt rather relaxed, just tense inside, because he thought he had seen something silver on the side of the Shadow. A Weapon? But why didn´t he use it then? Well, I´m pretty sure he didn´t want to draw much attention towards himself, otherwise he would have fought openly, but why? Why hide and then help? Just to run off when detected? I just don´t get it... 

The rest of the team secured the exits and they left, back to the pond. Once there they fell into their beds, to be awoken at 7.a.m. from Wildwing, for practice.

They gathered, grudgingly, on the ice and began their warmup, before they really started with practice, 20 minutes later.


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2:

It´s been a month since Duke´s first encounter with 'The Shadow', as he called the unknown person. He had seen him, he just assumed he was male, twice since that time in the storagehouse, but he always disappeared mysteriously, when he wanted to point him out to the others. He was rather sure that Wildwing assumed him to be paranoid or crazy, but Duke was sure he´d seen him rescue Nosedive and Tanya out of lifethreatening situations.

Nosedive had mysteriously survided uninjured when an old, abandoned building crumpled down on top of him and Tanya had to get back to the Mighgrator, to retrieve her accidentally forgotten omnitool, which she always carried around everywhere, when a bomb went off in the controlroom, in which she would have been, if she had had her omnitool with her.

He knew there was someone out there watching their back for them, but why would someone do that?

Not even Grin had sensed any 'confused spirit' or 'lost soul'. Sure it had been a straythought to ask him, but the answer he received was as riddled as ever and accompanied by it Grin had pointed out that Duke had troubled thoughts. Of couse he was right with that, but Duke wouldn´t tell him that.

Meanwhile Wildwing had noticed that not only Duke behaved rather strange, he didn´t believe that 'he´s on the edge to insanity' like Mallory assumed, but he walked down the road to become paranoid and Wildwing didn´t really like the thoughts a paranoid Duke would bring with him.

He tried to seek a logical explanation, ´cause as always there had to be one. At the same time paranoia was a psycological problem, so it followed the rules of logic it had to have a reason, which would have to be erased to stop the paranoia. But he couldn´t find a way to do so.

Another thing was, because of Dragaunus increased activity they´ve had to ask Phil to do their shopping and after two days without lunch nor dinner the foodstore had increased in quality and quantity as if Phil suddenly knew what they liked or had he just found some decent taste? They had agreed to write lists of what they´d like, but they never vanished, so Phil never took them.

It was a real mystery and Wildwing just couldn´t find a free moment to talk to Phil about it. ´Cause while at a new PR-Gag it wasn´t possible to talk to him, like talking him out of them, nor while practice or real matches or battles with Dragaunus, in which they always achieved their goal and their number of injuries really dad decreased in the last month, but that could have multiple reasons.

His third big worry was Nosedive, of course he worried about him 24/7, but he hadn´t been to the mall for 2 weeks now and it was really driving Wildwing insane to listen to his brothers nightly complaints. But appart from all of that, he was pretty fine, well exhausted and tired, but that was understandable. All of them had spent the last month chasing Dragaunus(or checking out Drake One Alert´s) (80), practicing and playing (10), on PR-stunts (5) and they slept inbetween all of that. But never longer than 3 or at one occasion even 4 hours without interruption.

Nosedive cursed all the way from the hangar to his room, where he threw himself into his bed. That was just unfair!

He just came from a row with his brother, because they´d driven directly back to the pond, instead of stopping at the mall, where he would have been able to look for some new comics for 28 minutes. Finally after 2 weeks without new comics he would have been able to get some new ones and what had happened?

Ok, he´d fallen asleep in his seat, but they could have woken him up! (Tanya had driven that day.) But no, his sweatheart of a brother couldn´t bring it over himself to do that. So instead Gring had carried him to bed, where he awoke half an hour ago, to try and find out what was going on, only to find out, by looking at his alarm clock, that the mall was closed by now. He went to find the others, confronted his brother and had a row with him, for letting him sleep. (Something he´d been grateful for, over the whole month, a little bit of sleep.) Now he was sulking in the room he joined with his brother, sitting on his bed, feet dangling from the edge. What can I do?...Man I´m tired, I think I´m gonna go back to sleep. So he lay down, closed his eyes, snuggled deep into the covers and started to drift off to sleep.

Two hours later red lights went on and the sirens of Drake One roared again. It was some strange energie detection, so they left to investigate.

Encountering the Saurians they fought in a dark alleyway, surrounded by abandoned houses. With the exception of Wildwing, who was currently fighting Dragaunus on his own, meanwhile slowly reaching the edge of the rooftop. With a swift motion he kicked Dragaunus into his stomach, just nearly being missed from a saurianlaserblast while retreating through a door. Whatever Dragaunus had wanted lay cracked in half on the rooftop. Wildwing was pretty sure Dragaunus wouldn´t be able to use it anymore, his suspicion was confirmed when he heard the saurian overlords roar of anger. Rushing down the stairs he tried to get to his team, to help them out.

Somehow the Saurians got the upper hand, so the rest of the team had to back up, because of the added pressure from newly called drones, until they had just the dead end of the street behind them, which ended in a solid wall, not just another alleyway as they had expected after the first view. The fireescapes weren´t in reach anymore and most of the dustbins to hide behind were already toasted. But they held their own pretty well, shooting puck´s at their opponents all the time. Thaking out drone after drone, without backing away anymore.

Wildwing had overlooked the fight below from the rooftop, but couldn´t risk to jump, so he quickened his race towards them.

Out of nowhere Dragaunus appeared in front of him and slammed him through a wall into a columned hall. Stepping through the hole after the duck, he looked around, wanting to take out his anger on the cause of it, but he found nobody to be there. He investigated further, but found the whole level to be void of any ducks. Again he roared in anger and commanded his minions to retreat, so he could shout at them, while thinking of another plan.

Wildwing felt himself slamm into a wall. He heared a crashing sound, assuming one of his bones cracked. Half expecting, half dreading another punch of the saurian, he didn´t even try to move and stand up. He just knew he was far too worn out to stand a chance at a hand to hand combat with the overlord.

Suddenly he felt someone lifting him into a tight embrace, while he could feel the cool nightair rushing around him. He cracked an eye open, to see a black figure, only slightly illuminated from behind with the light of a far streetlamp. He tried to speak, to thank his saviour, but he couldn´t get a word out, while looking into his eyes. Then the movement stopped, he was out of the embrace before he knew it, feeling himself lean against something solid. He passed out soon afterwards.


	3. Chapter 3

Sorry this took me so long, but I had some kind of writers block right in the middle of the chapter and well, I just couldn't post just half of it, it wouldn't have been enough. Hell, it's still not enough, but I don't want you to wait any longer.

Great thanks go to:

Angel362 ! Thanks for your encouraging words! You made my day! It was raining outside when I read your Review and guess what? Suddenly the sun was shining inside of me, you really enlightened my mood! Thanks a lot!

And to:

SaphireCatElf ! I loved your constructive criticism! It was really helpful, maybe you noticed that I changed the spelling errors you pointed out? Well anyway I thank you for liking my first attempt with the Mighty Ducks. I hope you're going to continue to like it, cause I had a sudden idea I'm going to bring into the story, which will either delay my planned plot, or twist it, so the more important part will come sooner.

I'm rally unsure about it, but hope it wont ruin the story. We'll see, I think.

I just love it to write Grin (don't ask why) even if it doesn't seem like it, 'cause he hasn't been one of the most active part of the story, but I'm going to change that within the next chapter! (Or the one after, who knows? Well, ok, I should know, but as I haven't written more than you see below, I really don't!) And NOOOOOOOOW:

CHAPTER 3:

Wildwing woke up in the infirmary. His first thought was about nothing in particular, but somehow his eyes had managed to stay with the last picture they had absorbed before looking at the blackness of his eyelids. Then it hit him. YELLOW! How could someone's eyes be yellow? He had no answer to this question, but it was the needed confirmation that Duke was right. Had been right all the time and he hadn't really believed him. He felt guilty for not believing in his fellow comrade, but then his mind was filled with the urge to tell him. Tell Duke that he had seen 'The Shadow' he'd told them about.

He opened his eyes and sat up, only to find out, that his back was aching like never before, so he groaned and fell back into the soft pillows.

Nosedive was halfway lying on the infirmary bed, halfway still sitting in the chair he must've pulled up to watch Wildwing sleep, well now it was him asleep, with his big bro' awake. Wildwing risked a glance through the infirmary, after smiling fondly at his lil' bro'. Tanya was hunched over, above a keyboard, sleeping in front of the medical computer. Grin was sitting lotus style before the wall next to the door, Duke and Mallory were asleep in two of the other infirmary beds. They had some bandages, but to him it seemed that nothing serious was wrong with them.

He just sighed to himself and called the memory of this strange eyes back into awareness, while struggling to find a solution as to why 'The Shadow' helped them and never revealed himself. He was startled by the door sliding open, revealing their manager.

W: "Phil." He greeted weakly.

P: "Hey, booba. What happened? Are you hurt? Do you think you can play on Friday?"

W: "Sure." He managed to cut Phil off, before he could entangle himself too much into his worries.

P: "Oh, good! You know you had me worried there for just some hours?" he reproached him.

W: "Sorry, that was not my intention."

P: "Well then, I'm gonna go. I have some errands to run for some new publicity stunts."

Wildwing just groaned while Phil left the infirmary.

T: "You're conscious again!"

Wing was startled by Tanya awaking from the door sliding closed, after Phil had left.

W: "Yeah." He just affirmed.

T: "Good. How do you feel?"

W: "Not that great. I've been better, but I think it could have been worse."

T: "Yes, surely. Let's see...you have two broken ribs, I mended them surgically and fixed them to stay in place with some metal...and you broke your right wrist, along with some cuts and bruises all over your back...so all in all your not in shape for any battle nor game as it is for let's say...the next two months."

W: "What?" he exclaimed alarmed. "Then who's gonna play Goalie? You know as well as I do that we don't have any reserve!"

T: "Well, in that case, we'll have to find someone for the job. Don't you think?" She replied coldly.

W: "I'm afraid you're right Tauny, like always." He sighed. Great! This is just great! We´re not going to win the Stanley Cup this year. mental sigh Man...and I was soo hoping we could win it again this year...it would have been our third, and it in a row, that is! I just don't believe it! I bet Dragaunus did that on purpose! 

Duke had been hit on his left shoulder, but as it wasn't that bad he could play, just like Mallory, she had just a cut on her right forearm and another on her left hip.

So two days later, when they held tryouts for a reserve goalie the whole team, except Wildwing, was on the ice.

In the end it took them nine hours and twenty-seven minutes until they had the 3 best players, but they were still nowhere near as good as Wing.

They decided to call it to an end and call on of the three for the next practice and went to bed, really exhausted and way too early for Duke and Dive.

They were both as exhausted as the rest of the team, but Dive just couldn't go to bed without telling Wing how much some of the tryout players sucked.

Of course he had watched all of it, Tanya had helpfully provided a monitor to watch it on, it had taken only seven minutes for her to connect the security cameras to the computer in the infirmary, so Wildwing could be watching the screen while lying in his infirmary bed. Finally the evening ended for Wildwing with falling asleep three hours later, while Nosedive was telling him about some faults of the 278 tryout goalie. Shortly after that Nosedive laid down on another bed, the one closest to his brother and fell into a deep slumber right away.

For Duke, it was an old habit to stay up until the early morning hours. And as old habits die hard, he decided to get some fresh air and went to sit on top of the pond, looking at the charming stars, above the twinkling streetlights.

Wr: "Still up?" asked a familiar voice behind him.

Duke spun around only to be dragged into blackness.

He awoke some hours later. He sat up and looked around only to find himself in a holding cell of the Raptor. He recognized it at once. There was no need to look for his saber, surely they had disarmed him before closing him away, but still he attempted it, it was like a reflex to him, his hand reached the empty space of his loved weapon. Couldn't have expected to have some luck, now could I? 

Just then Chameleon walked by. "Oh look! The Duckie is awake!" he screeched.

And there goes the rest of my luck. 

Then Seige came in and dragged him out of the cell, after putting some restraints onto him. Now his wrists were tied together behind him, connected with a chain, which was also connected to another chain leading towards his ankles, which were tied together, making it hard for him to walk without stumbling, also the chain connecting his wrists to his ankles was a bit too short for him, so he had to walk with his knees bent, which added to the difficulty of walking.

Dr: "Hahahahaha. If it isn't one of the oh soo mighty Ducks!" Dragaunus jubilated with joy.

Seige made him go down on bended knees, so he was even lower down, now nearly lying on the floor, with Dragaunus towering above him.

Se: "What do you want with him, boss?" he asked maliciously.

Dr: "Nothing. He's not important and I'm not interested in him. I just have one question for you." Surprisingly he looked directly at Chameleon. "Do you want to play with him?"

I know it's sort of evil to stop at this point, but it's the following part I'm unsure about, so don't expect it too soon.

Just to let you know: YES, I CAN BE CRUEL! And I might be going to prove it, or not who knows, not me, no, don't look at me, I have no idea! REALLY!

Well, I'm going to try and continue writing on 'a boring day...?...' or my other MD fic, it's in German though, so maybe I shouldn't...or I could write something wholly new and different...a crossover?...selfinsert?...What would you think about me, visiting my family in Anaheim? (I really have two cousins over there and they even live in Anaheim, so why not?) I think I should shut up now, so good night! (or whatever it is when, if, you're reading this!)

Ciao! Until next time! (I'm talking way too much!) °

Dendey


	4. Chapter 4

Well, this is longer than the last, but it's also rather different.

Once again: THANKS to:

SaphireCatElf: Thanks a lot for your review! However short it was I thank you for taking the time to tip it! It´s showing me that you liked the last chapter and I hope you like this one as well!

Chapter 4:

He had been able to just gasp in surprise, hiss in pain or take in a startled breath while Chameleon had been almost alone with him, if you didn't count the watching Overlord visible in the background. They had chained him to a stair, instead of the chain connecting the ones between his wrists and ankles there were now additional chains at his upper arms and around his calves.

So far Chameleon hadn't been a challenge at all, he could have endured his way of playing for days. Chameleon actually played a game with him, he would ask him everyday questions like they did on this strange TV shows, in which someone won a great amount of money, if he answered correctly.

He just used little shocks of electricity, nothing too serious, if Duke answered a question wrong, well nothing too serious until he wrongly answered his second question. The fourth time gave an incorrect answer he was sure that there was more energy behind the electricity shock. He even received an almost generous threat, the electricity level would stay the same, if he answered correctly.

Of course Duke knew something about earth but not everything, so he was effectively knocked out after another electricity shock, but would be awoken with a quick shower of ice cold water. He dreaded the next electricity shock, but it came none the less. He now was shocked, not only at the contacts resting upon his wrists and ankles, but from head to waist where his clothes had been soaked with water. The first shocks again just tingled lightly, but he knew it would grow worse with every wrong answer he gave.

After the third time he'd awoken to see that Chameleon had apparently asked Seige to assist him in 'playing'. He hadn't run out of questions to ask, oh no, Duke was sure there were at least some Canyons and mountains and rivers left of which he had no idea what they were called, if their tops were clothed in snow the whole year or which kind of fish swam in their water. His guess was that Dragaunus had grown impatient or had at least been bored by Chameleons methods.

That was the reason for his sore throat: Seige! With Seige 'playing' with him he hadn't been able to hold in his cries of pain any longer.

Seige had turned the 'playing' into something more brutal and purposefully inflicted physical pain upon him. He punched him, whipped him, slapped him, used a dagger to pour some blood out of little gashes all over his body and other unpleasantries. Now he was absolutely sure, that Seige did know the meaning of the word 'torture' quite well.

He awoke to pain. A hell of a lot of pain.

It had been hours so far and it was the eighth time he'd fallen unconscious.

But now it was over.

He now had a sore throat and his voice was just a hoarse whisper, if anyone listened carefully enough to hear it at all.

But he knew it was finally over, because he awoke to loneliness.

He was in another holding cell or was it the same? One with fluorescent blue bars, surely made out of electricity, he shuddered at the thought. He lay upon a cot, courtesy of Chameleon he supposed and was wrapped in a blanket. He had no idea why, but Chameleon did seem to be the one saurian Duke might think twice about killing.

He took off his eye patch. He would have to give it to Tanya. The water had caused some reaction within it and it didn't function anymore, so he could only see with his left eye. He just hoped that Tanya would be able to repair it, because he had known no technology alike it on Puckworld. It had been unique. A unique gift of his savior a long, long time ago.

Of course it had been the leader of the Brotherhood who gave it to him that night, so many years ago, but Chris had told him that it wasn't from him, nor had he been the one to save him, but the one to find him. Chris had discovered him lying in the infirmary at around 9 in the morning. He'd been about to go to bed, when he'd decided to take a last lap around the headquarters to double-check it's safety. There had been a bandage firmly wrapped around his head, covering his injured eye and he hadn't been able to remember much of the nights events, but he knew one thing for a fact: He knew that his parents were dead. And he supposed that his older brother might be dead as well. That was everything he would know for years to follow.

Chris had known about the accident. He had known that Duke had been with his parents when the truck had struck their car. His family had always been a part of the Brotherhood for as long as he could remember and the Brotherhood watched their charges, because the Brotherhood was family as his mother had always told him. So it was natural that Chris had known all about it. His parents hadn't been actively involved in 'Brotherhood Business' for years, but they'd always been up to date with their comrades.

He had surprised Chris with his concern about his brother, but Chris hadn't argued with the thirteen year old and just gave in to his pleas to call him. The phone call was never answered. At 7 pm Chris had sent someone to check on Adriano L'Orange. His corpse had been found in his apartment, the university was crestfallen, he'd been rather intelligent.

Duke had feared for his brother but he'd known that it might be too late to save him and his suspicions had been confirmed. His brother had bled to death. Someone had sliced his wrists and placed him in the bath tub, so it would look like suicide to an outsider, but somehow he knew his brother had been murdered.

His brother hadn't been someone to run from live and search salvation in death. That hadn't been like him at all. But who would've wanted his brother dead? And who would've wanted his parents dead? The truck had exploded the moment it had hit their car, so there had been some explosive attached to it.

He had contemplated this questions for years, sometimes alone and sometimes together with Chris, but he still had no answer.

Chris had been imprisoned ten years later, leaving Duke to be the next leader of the Brotherhood. It had been that day when he had first heard about the Brotherhood of the Blood.

There were more parts of the Brotherhood than anyone thought. It was not just the 'Brotherhood of the Blade', though it was the one most popular of the Brotherhoods, but there were many other parts of the Brotherhood as well, all of them were joined in the great 'Brotherhood of the Blood'. Because of that the Brotherhood of the Blood had members all over Puckworld and they were really quick in gathering information. Most of the members of the Brotherhood of the Blood were just blood members, meaning they had inherited their membership, just like his parents, but he'd never been able to figure out why.

To his knowledge none of his ancestors had been a thief, because even the Brotherhood of the Blood had been founded by 'a bunch of thief's' as the eldest member, Cladiston, had told him. Why he had been made leader and not Cladiston was another thing he'd never been able to figure out.

Everyone could join the Brotherhoods as long as he had a helpful ability, needed their protection, was a really talented thief or whatever. There were many ways to join the Brotherhoods, but just selected members could join the Brotherhood of the Blood, because no one, besides the members, knew of it's existence.

All of this was a great secret and Duke was sure that he would take it to his grave. Which considering his momentary situation of imprisonment was not that far away. If Seige kept going in his pace and continued 'playing' with him, then he would die from blood loss. He was sure about it. He would bleed to death just like his brother, even if he had no idea why his brother had had to die, he suspected that he'd known some valuable information. Maybe he died 'cause someone found out about the Brotherhood of the Blood and he couldn't answer the questions concerning it, 'cause he had no idea about it...Or he wouldn't 'cause he knew he'd put too many lives in danger...Yes, maybe he knew about it and just wouldn't betray us to anyone...but to whom? 

That was an interesting thought. It was a new one. He hadn't thought about his late brother at all since they'd arrived on earth.

I'm not sure if it's too early to reveal a bit of Duke´s past or if your gonna like his past like this, but I just couldn't describe any more torture, believe me the little bit I wrote about it was bad enough for me. Originally I didn't even plan to really let them torture Duke, but the story just carried me away...I hope you know what I mean.

I don't know how you liked it, but I'd like to know. So, please if you have a minute to spare, review.


	5. Chapter 5

Hello again! This took quite some time for me, to come up with a new one. I just want to show what's going on at the Pond (if anyone wondered about them). We all know how Wing is going to react: worry! But this time we have someone else who's going to be rather concerned about Duke's wellbeing (or lack of it). So, I know it's going to be a bit out of caracter, but I just want to show the deep friendship in between the teammembers.

Great THANKS again, to:

SaphireCatElf: It's really great to know someone besides me is reading this. And even approves of it! Thanks for voicing your opinion!

So, well I'm really glad you found the bit about Duke's past interesting. I wasn't sure if it wasn't too early to put it in, but then again he's worried about his future and even a bit afraid of dying, so I figured it would fit to let him think of his family. I know (if I have any say in it) Wing would certainly worry about his lil' bro, so why not?

So, now here it comes:

CHAPTER 5:

They had lost. He just couldn´t believe it! They had truely lost! Ok, he had known that the goalie sucked, but it couldn't have been that bad if the whole team had been there. But that hadn't been the case, as Duke just didn't show up to the game. Dive was furious on one side, but really crushed and disappointed on the other. Wing of course was worried, so that was the reason why Dive was presently climbing the stairs to get on top of the Pond.

Judging from the com-signal he was sitting on the rooftop at his caracteristical spot, the one he used when brooding or when he just wanted to be alone to think things through.

Dive looked over the roof, but couldn't locate his friend with his eyes, so he just followed the com-signal. But just as he wanted to tell Duke how much his little joke had sucked, he nearly stumbled over the com-unit lying at his feet. His rage ebbed away, just to let something else surface: worry, extreme worry. Now he knew how Wing must be feeling everytime he got lost and now he could finally understand his brother. He couldn't stand the thought of Duke being missing, it just hurt too much.

He grabbed the com-unit and raced back into the infirmary, to find a fumming Mallory, a really disappointed looking Tanya, even if she was just trying to reason with his brother, that it had to happen sometime sooner or later.

G: "Tanya is right Wildwing. We had to loose, to know how important it is that we all have to work together to win."

M: "Yeah, just that one of us had no intention to 'work together to win'." She interjected viciously.

N: "And the other sucked." He affirmed.

W: "Sorry, 'bout that one." He mumbled.

T: "That was quite ok, Wing. You couldn't have played. Even if we favor you above every other goalie in the league."

All of them just nodded solemnly at Tanya´s statement, making Wing blush.

W: "Dive, did you find Duke?" he cutted the topic, looking rather embarassed at receiving praised from everyone.

N: "Yes and no. I just retrieved his com from the roof."

The whole room went completely silent at that. After a minute Dive just couldn't take the thik layer of silence paralysing the others any longer, so he voiced his concernes about his apparently missing friend.

N: "Wing I'm worried about him. I just know he wouldn't have left without a word, just shortly befor an important game. I mean he´s gone, just like that." He couldn't find the right words to express his confused feelings of rage, disappointment and worry about their friend, but was sure that the others understood his reasoning. They all knew Duke well enough to know that acting like that was totally out of caracter for him.

Everyone looked at him dumbstruck.

T: "You're worried?" she asked, awed by the idea, that their young friend might finally be growing up.

N: "Yeah. So what's wrong with that?" he defended himself.

G: "Nothing, little friend. It's just not like you to express your worries so freely."

M: "I think it's disturbing, to say the least."

W: "Tanya can you tell if he took his com off by himself?"

N: "No, he certainly didn't. It's just not like him." He informed the others.

M: "We don't know that, he's been acting strange for the past month or so. Ever since he THOUGHT he saw that mysterious 'Shadow'." She pointed out, stressing the word 'thought' more than needed, just to remind them of his paranoia, as she called it.

W: "Well, the 'Shadow' does exist. I saw him, just before I went unconscious. He saved me from Dragaunus."

T: "When was that?" she asked worriedly, imagining Wing having a nightmare and taking it for the truth.

W: "Just two days ago, while you were fighting his goons in the alleyway and he threw me through a wall. Didn't I mention this?"

M: "NO, you didn't!" Now even Mallory began to look a bit worried.

W: "Sorry, in that case I forgot it."

M: "Obviously." She snarled.

N: "And besides, the clasp is broken." He added to his previous statement, making them even more worried, but ending the quarrel between Mallory and Wing.

W: "Ok, let's be rational. When have you last seen him?"

N: "Yesterday, just after sorting through the mostly hopeless cases of human goalies for the game we lost today." His worry seemed to increase with every passing minute, it was painly visible for all of them, as he began to pace in the middle of the sentence.

They were used to him being overactive, but they weren't used to him pacing the room while thinking. Hell, they weren't even used to him thinking at all. Normally he just rushed into everything, now he really seemed to consider the possibilities causing Duke's disappearance.

N: "Wing? You think he could have been ducknapped?"

W: "That's possible, but by whom?"

M: "Maybe it was the 'Shadow'." She suggested, rather unhelpfully.

N: "NO! It wasn't him! Duke said he helped us, all the time!"

W: "Dive is right Mallory. I refuse to belief that he would help us, just to harm us."

M: "Well maybe he's a maniac! A bizarrely twisted fan, who wants to get close to us! To sneak his way inside us, so we'll trust him! Who else would stay up at night, just to fight some saurians!"

N: "Well, that's what WE do all the time, if you haven't noticed!"

G: "The Shadow means us no harm." He stated firmly, ending the discussion.

Sorry that this Chap is shorter than the previous ones, but I just wanted to end it with Grin, to get the importance of his point of view across. I think they all try to listen to him, even when they mostly have no idea just what exactly he's talking about. Still they listen and try to follow his advice, if they can figure out what he wants them to do.

If you don't agree, than please let me know through a little Review!


	6. Chapter 6

Well, here it is, the next one. I have no idea why the thought of writing it attacked me at 0: 11, but it took me 'til 2:17 to finish it. And that is the only reason why I had to look up such a simple word as 'carpet' in my dictionary. All in all I just had to use it three times. That's really pulling me down, 'cause I didn't require it's services once for the last three or four chapters.

So I really hope you like it, even or especially as there's nearly no motion in this chap. It's mostly a memory I yearned to write down. Once I started with Duke remembering situations of his past, the thought just wouldn't leave me and also I think everyone would re-think his life, if he/she had the time to, while expecting death.

**_THANKS_** go to:

_SaphireCatElf:_ Well, you asked for it, you wanted to read more, so I wrote more. I hope you find this part of Duke's past interesting as well.

You know, I'm beginning to think that you're the only one left reading my poor try to write an interesting story. (At least I planned it to be interesting...though I'm not really sure it is...) Seeing as your the only one left:

I'm open to every suggestion for the rest of the story. If you want me to put anything into it, just say or rather write it and I'll see if can work it in. I have a red string, so don't worry I'm not hopelessly lost, unknowing of what's to come or struck somewhere, nor am I at the point of breaking off or to resigning myself to fate. (As she's a bitch, as they say, why should I care what she has planned for me or my story anyway?)

Now I'm ending my useless babbling, 'cause it is already far too long as it is!

CHAPTER 6:

He felt cold, as cold as the ice always felt shortly before a storm ripped through the air, back home. So he tried to close himself off again, he had hidden himself in his head for the past hours, or days? He had no idea about time anymore, he just knew that it was passing, but if it did this at a fast or at a low pace was lost to him. He just fled into his memories, mostly memories of Puckworld. He had caught snatches of images of past times, long forgotten by his conscious memory, but still buried deep inside of him. It was a slow process, but step by step he regained parts of them, parts of the happier times of his childhood. Times in which Adriano had teased him good naturedly, just for the fun of it, times in which his father had returned late from work or his mother had cooked him one of his favorite meals, exclaiming that he was much too thin for his age. Of course she had always exaggerated his not really existing thinness, but never the less it had always felt great to know that she was a bit worried about his health. It had always shown him that she cared. So he searched through his head trying to catch his past, so it wouldn't slip away again. And then his mind clouded over and a sudden memory caught his interest and he let himself fall into it's sanctuary.

Memory

_He'd fallen asleep on the couch in the living room, being cradled to the chest of his father, embraced by his strong arms. He awoke in the middle of the staircase, when his father was still climbing the stairs to get his youngest son into bed. The five-year-old quickly looked over the broad shoulder of his father, to assure that his mother was following them, his half-lidded eyes soon focused on her, so he felt reassured. He was used to the fact that both of his parents would tuck him in. Often causing him to fall asleep on his mothers lap while waiting for his father to return from work, because he often worked longer than expected if the building plans of his clients needed fixing. He was laid down into his bed and tucked in by the soft hands of his mother, she then pecked him on the cheek and both of his parents quietly left the room after they'd whispered the usual quote of: 'good night' together, to which his mother always added a 'sleep well', while his father wished him: 'sweet dreams'. He was still semiconscious when the door closed after them, but he felt safe so he soon fell asleep again. _

_Later into the night he awoke to the sound of rustling fabric, so he peaked around to find it's source. Across the room his brother was thrashing and turning in his bed, little moans escaping his beak every now and then, suddenly Adriano sat up straight with a horrified scream filling the air. Their parents rushed into the room soon after, his mother immediately tried to soothe the eleven-year-old in her arms that it had just been a nightmare. _

"_It's ok, sweetheart. It was just a bad dream." she murmured softly into her sons hair._

"_N-no i-it was-s n-noot!" he insisted, over and over again._

_His brother seemed rather distressed to him, he'd never been like that before and it kind of frightened him a bit, just like the scream had frightened him, making cold shivers run up and down his spine as long as it'd echoed through their joined bedroom. His father caught his worried gaze, as he sat down at the end of his oldest sons bed, so he motioned him over. Duke got up and waddled over the carpet to be embraced again, while being lifted onto his fathers lap, where he stayed and just snuggled closed to the offered warmth. _

"_Tell me." She encouraged him after he'd finally calmed down enough to breath normal, rather than taking in some gasps of air between choked out words._

_After struggling to get together his courage he began to tell them, in a low whisper, what had transpired in his head. Duke had to admit, that his brothers scaring imagination also fascinated him._

"_I was on my way home when I used a short-cut to meet Duke at the kindergarten, so we could walk home together. I-i was stopped in the middle of the hallway it was rather dark, so I just saw some shadows, then I heard screaming from around the corner, so I just looked carefully around the corner. Someone bumped into me, so we both fell to the ground. It was Duke and he looked so scared, no he looked horrified but he seemed to be glad to see me. There was a gang of some moving shadows. We tried to race away, but they caught us after two streets. There I could see them." He just stopped, shivered and shrank further into the arms of his mother. _

"_T-they were really, really ugly. You know they were that kind of ugly you don't even see on the screen in these horror-movies they just show at night."_

"_Now, now. You know that's not a nice thing to say." Their father scolded lightly, his chest rumbling with the sound of his deep voice, making Duke feel even more secure. "Besides how would you know about the contents of 'these horror-movies they just show at night'?"_

_His brother looked a little bit sheepish for a moment, he glanced at his father nervously, but upon the sight of a really big grin plastered over the whole beak of their father, combined with a bemused twinkle in his eyes he knew he had nothing to worry about. _

"_Lets leave that part for later." Her mother interjected, she clearly had the intention to investigate this matter a bit further._

"_Well, 'k, mum. So there were these really ugly guys and-and they caught us and beat us a-and I dunno...I think I fell unconscious or something...they took us to a prison and the-there they went really mean. They started to chain us to walls and whip us a-and there were just so many of us...And they laughed at us, all the time. It was really scary and it hurt!"_

"_You said: 'there were just so many of us' what do you mean by that? Children? These ugly guys didn't look like your math's teacher at any chance? Look I know you're worried about this exam tomorrow, but you know you shouldn't worry too much about it, 'cause your really good at math."_

"_No, dad! They-they looked like they were covered with-with parts of flesh and rock...they looked really strange...and ugly."_

"_Flesh and rock? Maybe scales?" he had no idea why he'd asked it, receiving a glare from his wife and a curious look from Duke, but Adriano nodded enthusiastically. _

"_Yeah! How did you know?"_

"_Well, you do think fish is ugly, so I just figured it might be something akin to them."_

"_Oh, yeah. But they didn't swim, they were walking on the ground. A-and they were always laughing, but it sounded so mirthless, so empty..." his voice shook again "A-a-and they always said something like: 'We are superior than your pitiful race! You should've handed over your planet without resistance and we wouldn't be forced to convince you like this.' I-i dunno why they always complained, wh-when it really seemed to amuse them that we tried to fight."_

"_I'm pretty sure you just stayed up for too long and got a far too long glimpse of 'these horror-movies' young drake." Her voice sounded convinced of her statement, but Duke saw her eyes and they betrayed her, clearly showing him the worry she felt. _

"_Why did we run?" was his innocent question. He'd just remembered that he'd been a part of his brothers dream and he wanted to know why his dream image hadn't fought. _

"_Because they were mean to us. They hurt us." His brother tried to explain._

"_Why didn't we hurt them back?" he argued._

"_Because we weren't strong enough."_

"_And why didn't we call for help?"_

"_Yes indeed, that one's a really good question." Their father interjected. "Who would you've called for?" he asked him softly. _

"_You!" his young self shot back. He had complete faith in his father, because he knew he would be able to protect him from everything. _

"_And what if I'm not strong enough to go against all of them at the same time?"_

"_Then Chris would have to help too!" his brother tried._

"_And if Chris and I would still be not enough?"_

_This time both of them thought carefully, until Duke took the last option left. _

"_We could always call for WildCat!" he smiled triumphantly. His brother broke into a triumphant grin, very similar to the one on his little brothers beak, along with their father. Even their mothers beak was graced with a small smile, while she was just rolling her eyes. _

"_Remember, that WildCat is always only a call away."_

"_But just while we're in harms reach." The boys chorused together. _

_Their father had told both of them loads of good-night-stories about the heroic defender and guardian of their family. Mostly about the times WildCat had saved their ancestor Darino L'Orange from the saurian overlords, which he'd offended by thrashing some of their battleships, while defending PuckWorld. Once he'd even mentioned Drake DuCaine himself finding sanctuary in the help of WildCat. _

_After that it didn't take long for both of the L'Orange brothers to go to sleep again, even when Duke wasn't sure if he'd really heard his mothers harsh whisper of: 'Scales! Marcucio, tell me just why you had to ask him that?' or his fathers: 'I'm not sure, love. But I don't like the thought of one of my sons dreaming about saurians. Even if he doesn't know it. I'm sure he was never really afraid of them Careldy, 'cause all I told them wasn't really that bad. Besides I never described any of the overlords to them. And besides WildCat always succeeded in smashing them.' Or his mothers scared: 'Saurians? Just why would he dream of such dreadful creatures? Especially if he's not afraid of them?' or his fathers cryptic answer of: 'I dunno love, but I can't say I'd want to know.'_

_Memory end_

His vision cleared out and Duke felt the sudden urge to call out for WildCat to safe him. On one hand he believed him to be a myth, just like Drake DuCaine himself, but on the other end he wasn't beyond caring, so he still felt his deep trust and faith in his father. He'd always believed in everything his father had taught him, so why should he stop now? Canard had found the legendary mask of Drake DuCaine, just because Nosedive had believed in it's existence. Why shouldn't he be able to summon WildCat to help him, just because a five-year-old version of himself believed in his existence? It was worth a try, wasn't it?


	7. Chapter 7

Hello again! I'm back from the dead so beware of the devil! This isn't that long, considering how long you've waited for it, but my sister was visiting! (Last time she did that was 2 years ago, so we had to catch up a lil' bit...) Anyhow, thank you for reading the past chapter, apparently you really liked it, as I got TWO wonderful and encouraging reviews!

Greatest **_THANKS_**! go to:

_SaphireCatElf:_ You've waited long enough! Here it is, the next one! I've tried to get a bit more action into it, but I'm not sure I succeeded. This one is with Duke again, but also without him, somehow...I hope that's not too bad, you'll just have to read it and tell me, ok? I just wanted to get him back, without really describing how he got out of the Raptor's holding cell. Maybe I'm gonna tell how that happened in a later chapter...I have to contemplate it carefully, can't give away too many secrets too soon, now can I? And hopefully I haven't lost the hang of it, considering I just gained it last chapter...°

**AND**

_The Sadistic Cow:_ I totally agree with you! While writing the last chapter I had this picture of a five-year-old Duke, in blue velvet pajamas with tiny yellow stars upon it and sleep tousled hair, in my head and just couldn't help to overhear the: CUTE! My mind screamed at me. Also it's maybe a bit too angsty, but that's the part I realized the moment I had to translate it into german, 'cause I was reading it to a friend of mine, to get her opinion if she thought it to be cute as much as I did. In that moment I grabbed on to the extend of the fear I let flow into it, while writing it. I was scared by myself for a moment, because it didn't seem that dark when I wrote and then read it in English. But as you liked it, that shouldn't have been a problem!

But now! You don't have to wait any longer! Let's go on with

CHAPTER 7:

Wildwing woke up in the middle of the night. It had been three days since their lost game. So it had been nearly four days since Duke's disappearance and they had yet to find any trace of his whereabouts. He just lay there, eyes closed, thinking what he should try next. He had called Captain Klegghorn immediately after Dive had retrieved Duke's Com-unit from the rooftop. Klegghorn had arranged a search party and the forensic people had searched the roof for anything, without success. They had confirmed that Duke had been on the rooftop, but other than Dive's footprints there was no evidence of another 'visitor' left. The whole team was worried and Phil was another thing entirely. He had tried to use Duke's disappearance for publicity and Wildwing had just barely been able to talk him out of it. So their fan's had no idea anything was wrong or that Duke wasn't really lying in the infirmary because he caught the flu, at least that was what they had decided to tell the people after the game. This distraction was working for the moment, but it wouldn't work for ever. The police had rated the case of Duke's disappearance as 'top secret' and just selected members of the police even knew that there was a case concerning Duke L'Orange. Wildwing had even tried to use the Mask of Drake DuCaine to search for Duke, but Tanya wouldn't let him leave the infirmary, or even his bed for that matter. He had given the mask to Mallory and Klegghorn had escorted her around the city, without finding the Raptor.

It was the only logical possibility left: Dragaunus. He wouldn't have needed to stand on top of the roof. He could've easily snatched Duke from the rooftop, using a drone with an attached hovering device or something alike. But that left the fact of the broken clasp of Duke's Com-unit. Still he'd sent Mallory to search for the Raptor. Tanya had voiced the possibility of Dragaunus possessing a tracking device constructed especially for ducks, which he'd used back on PuckWorld to search cities for survivors. One of the reasons why the resistance had always been on the move, changing their whereabouts every so often to confuse him and protect their members. Even the Brotherhood had used that strategy, which was why Duke had voted for their headquarters being directly under the Pond. He'd reasoned that it wouldn't look suspicious for them to be inside there, training or playing. It would be purely ironic to find Duke with it on earth, while he always successfully managed to hide himself from it on PuckWorld, but it was a promising possibility they clang to.

Duke...Where are you? It was a question he'd asked himself at least a hundred times the past days, but couldn't quit wondering about.

Suddenly he heard the door slide open. Probably Tanya to check on me again. She'd grown used to check-up on him every spare minute she had, so it wasn't unusual if she did that in the middle of the night on her way to the kitchen for a glass of milk or whatever. He heard the characteristically clicking sound, which started the process to power up the medical computer, so he feigned to be asleep. After some minutes, in which Tanya had sat down on the bed next to his, probably to watch the monitors surrounding him and straightened out the wrinkles she'd caused with that, she seemed ready to leave the infirmary. Wildwing heard her walk back to the door, but she had forgotten something.

W: "Don't you want to shut-down the medical computer, Tawny?" he asked her with a tired, but still amused smile on his beak, while opening his eyes.

The realization that that person standing before the door, with his back to him, wasn't Tanya hit him with such a force, that he let out a startled gasp of surprise. Something he might've been able to restrain himself from, if it hadn't been for the suddenly turned head with this nearly fluorescent yellow eyes.

He hurriedly sat up, but the 'Shadow' was out of the door before his bare feet even touched the floor. He flipped his com-unit open and called the rest of the team.

W: "WAKE UP! ALL OF YOU!" he commanded, throwing worry and caution aside.

He heard movement on the corridor outside, but couldn't make out of whom. Then Dive and Tanya stumbled right through the door. Tanya switched on the light and gasped.

W: "The 'Shadow' was just here! Try to hold him back from leaving the Pond!" he quaked hurriedly with his dry throat.

Nosedive was the first to react, he stormed out into the hall and raced to the only exit, leading up to the rink. He was joined by Mallory shortly after and ran into Grin after turning around a corner.

G: "What is so urgent, little friend?" he asked, while pulling Nosedive to his feet again.

M: "GET MOVING!" she thundered from the end of the hall, disappearing around the next corner.

Dive and Grin followed her, just to find her staring at the empty and ghostly quiet rink, caressed by the soft glow of the moonlight, which illuminated the whole stadium, being reflected from the ice's smooth surface. Not a single sound could be heard beside their breathing, so they soon decided to return to the sickbay.

Wildwing reached out to get the glass of water standing on his nightstand, but froze upon the sight unfolding itself before him. There, lying in the infirmary bed next to his, was Duke.

W: "TANYA!" he called for her, because she was still standing there, unmoving just before the door, looking at Duke with shock and disbelief in her eyes.

His shout snapped her out of her trance and she hurried over to their injured friend. Most of Duke's body was covered in light bandages, except his wrists and ankles, where the bandages were thicker, leading them to the suspicion, that that was where the most damage had been done to him.

Tanya surveyed the screen connected to the medical machines connected to Duke, which spit out information's about their unconscious friend and then carefully unwrapped some of the bandages.

There was some ointment applied to the now revealed cut's and bruises, so Tanya took a sample of it to identify it.

After five minutes of test's, in which the others arrived, Wildwing knew he'd been right about the intentions of the 'Shadow'. It was a healing salve.

G: "I told you the 'Shadow' means us no harm."

W: "And we believed you. But it's still sad you couldn't catch him. I really want to talk to him."

They were confused. All of them. They were confused to no end from the 'Shadow's' actions. He'd helped them another time, at least that's what Wildwing voiced while contemplating the facts and his confused thoughts aloud. Grin could only tell them that the 'Shadow' had known what he was doing. He hadn't been confused by his surroundings, while navigating through their headquarters to get to the rink and out of the Pond. So he must've known the route from previous use, of course he could've just memorized the route while making his way to the sickbay to 'deliver' Duke. Another confusing part of the whole situation was that Duke's eye patch was gone. Instead his right eye was also tightly bandaged, but with black velvet. Tanya hadn't even dared to glimpse underneath the strip of cloth, she'd told them that Duke's eye could be severely damaged by contact with too much light and Duke would surely kill all of them if his bad eye got any worse. They'd searched every pocket of Duke's belt and dress for the eye patch, but to no avail. It just remained lost, even when Nosedive had found a secret pocket inside Duke's boots, but as it'd been empty they had no idea where they could continue to search for it. All they'd found was his saber, it too had been wrapped into a peace of black velvet, lying innocently on the nightstand. Just beside Wildwing's glass of water. He hadn't noticed it back then, but it'd been there all the time. Tanya had tried to search the velvet for some remnants of it's last owner, without success. They knew as much about the 'Shadow' as they knew before he returned Duke back home: Nothing.

They had no idea who had ducknapped Duke, where he'd been for the past days or how he got out of there. They supposed he'd be able to tell them once he woke up, but they couldn't be sure. Most of them still suspected the saurians, but Mallory still suspected the 'Shadow', leading to a big, in the end shouted, discussion between her and Nosedive, which had to be ended by the combined forces of Wildwing and Tanya.

Mallory didn't utter a word for the rest of the night. She seemed worried and relieved at once, but no one dared to approach her to talk about the source of her apparently bad mood. Wildwing supposed it was the fact that she had failed to capture the 'Shadow', let alone notice an intruder inside the Pond, but he wasn't really sure. Not even Tanya knew why the security system hadn't alerted them of someone entering the Pond. Grin sat next to the door again, meditating and Nosedive had carried a chair between the bed of his brother and Duke's. Most of them fell asleep during the next hours, but Wildwing held himself awake with the help of some coffee, even ignoring the stern looks he received from Tanya for doing so. He wanted to call Klegghorn the moment he entered his office the next morning. Tanya fussed over him and Duke non-stop, but couldn't really do anything, apparently the 'Shadow' had done all that had been possible at the moment, because all Tanya had added to his professional first aid was a pint of stored blood and now Duke just needed to rest and most of all: wake up.

When six a clock arrived Wildwing snatched the phone from his nightstand, again receiving a disapproving look for his sudden movement from Tanya. She'd told him to take it slowly, because of his ribs, but he refused to listen to her, one reason for her now constant lectures about misbehaving patients he had to listen to every time she left the infirmary. He dialed the now memorized number, he'd had to use it far too often the past days to forget it again, for at least the next year.

Kl: "Anaheim Police Department, this is the office of Captain Klegghorn. How may I help you?"

W: "Good morning, Captain. This is Wildwing Flashblade. He's back!" he got that out in just one breath, speaking like a reporter commenting a ten seconds lasting sprint.

Kl: "Who's back?" was his confused reply. Then suddenly more awake it clicked. "He's back! Since when and where did you find him?"

W: "The middle of the night. We didn't really find him on our own, it was more like someone 'delivered' him to the sickbay." He informed him.

Kl: "Don't you dare to touch anything!" he warned before ending the call.

W: "I think he's coming over."

The rest of the team, they'd awoken during the call, groaned in anticipation of the Captain's arrival.

W: "He's not that bad."

But his team wasn't fooled by him. They knew the Captain quite well by now and all of them had agreed upon one point: he was infuriating. Mallory got along with him rather well, for obviously military connected reasons. Both of them were forced and used to obey strict orders. Grin didn't really dislike him, but he didn't like him either, at least that's what he wanted all of them to believe, but Wildwing knew better. He'd never seen Grin meditate more frequently than he did within the past few days. Tanya always kicked him out of the infirmary, claiming he caused Wildwing to get upset, the truth was that he just annoyed her to no end. And Nosedive avoided the Captain at all costs. He sided with Mallory, believing Nosedive needed strict orders to be rightfully educated and get better manners, because in their eyes he was just an annoying teenager without a sense of right an wrong, who always underestimated the possible danger of a situation. The matter never came up with Wildwing around of course, so he had no idea about that, but it was a bit suspicious that his brother always left the room shortly after the Captain entered, if he stayed that long at all, knowing Klegghorn was to arrive.


	8. Chapter 8

Well, as all of you know Reviews are pure inspiration for any and every author, so this just popped into my head after reading the first Review for Chapter 7...It's not as long as the previous Chapters, but it's not too short, so I've decided to post it anyway. I'm not promising too much, but you're not going to see much action within this chapter. But if your counting Wing drinking his coffee to be considered some kind of action, then you won't be disappointed!

Again my **_THANKS_** go to:

_SaphireCatElf_: You managed to be the first Reviewer for the last Chapter! It's not like there was a competition or anything, but I just wanted you to know...Anyway thanks a lot for the Review! And just for your patience I updated sooner than ever! Hope you enjoy this, even if it's mostly dialogue...

**AAAAND** here it comes!

**CHAPTER 8**:

He was sitting in the kitchen, with a mug of coffee in his hands. Tanya had finally agreed to let him out of the infirmary for short walks. The Captain sat opposite him, munching down some doughnuts after inviting him to join in, with Wing politely reclining the unneeded calories. Wildwing was wondering what he'd ask first as they'd already exchanged the normal pleasantries.

He'd started his interrogation the second he'd stepped into the Pond, asking everyone questions about everything. Never considering they might've been somewhere else, like asleep in their beds, while Duke had been 'delivered'.

He hadn't dared to interrogate Wildwing the way he did with the others, for the obvious reason of respect. Since they'd fought side by side to free the Pond from the saurians grip, he'd gotten to respect Wildwing and finally, after working together some more times, he'd began to treat him as an equal. Something the others could never hope to be in his eyes. But then Tanya had discharged Wildwing out of the sickbay, leading to him sitting at the kitchen table, across from Klegghorn, with the rest of the team waiting 'patiently' outside the door. If you could call the continuous pacing of Mallory and Dive, which Wildwing could hear through the little gap between the door and it's frame, patient. They'd just let the door open out of lazyness, at least that's how it would've looked to an outsider, but Wildwing knew they were a bit worried about him too. Even if he couldn't find a reason for that, apart from his ribs he felt just fine.

Kl: "Well, what happend? You were a little tight lip-'beaked' on the phone." He corrected himself and tried to keep the quite relaxed atmosphere that always seemed to linger in the kitchen, just like the smell of freshly made coffee did.

W: "I'm not really sure about it either. I woke up and after a while I heard someone enter. That's nothing unusual in itself, considering we've all been worried about a missing team member, we've got a bit more...protective, I think, of each other than we normally are." He took an uneasy sip of his coffee.

Kl: "So it's not unusual for your comrades to pay you a nightly visit in the infirmary?"

W: "No, it's been absolutely normal the past days."

Kl: "Ok. Go on." He scribbled something down onto the page of a little notebook.

W: "Well I heard someone enter, but as I wasn't in the right mood for talking, I feigned to be asleep. I heard someone moving and sitting down on the bed next to mine, at least that's what I thought I've heard at that time. I assumed it was just Tanya checking up on my medical reports, as she does that a lot and at the most unusual hours that is." He took another sip of coffee, partly just to stay awake and partly out of the simple habit of distracting himself, so as not to get lost in his memories of the night. Leading to his mind constantly reprimanding him for not acting sooner, for not realizing it wasn't Tanya, for not listening carefully enough to hear the breath of a third person in the room...

Kl: "Ok. You weren't suspicious of the situation, because you assumed that a fellow team-member was with you, right?" he distracted Wildwing of his wonderings.

W: "Right. But when she left and didn't shut-down the medical computer she'd powered up after entering, I decided to remind her of it. Well, not her, not Tanya I mean, as it wasn't her leaving the sickbay but...you get what I mean?" he was a little bit confused by himself, he'd gotten lost in the past moment again and at that time his mind hadn't realized that it wasn't Tanya with him, but someone else.

Kl: "Yes and it's quite interesting what you can tell me just from the sounds of it. But now please tell me what you saw." He turned a page in his notebook and reached for another doughnut, this time one with chocolate icing and colored sugar on top of it. "How did the 'postman' react to being discovered?" he asked halfway through his doughnut.

For a moment Wildwing was completely baffled at the strange name of 'postman' for the person he'd gotten used to refer to as the 'Shadow' in his mind, but he quickly got over it.

W: "Well, he didn't respond verbally." Another sip of coffee accompanied that statement and he recalled the startled expression, there hadn't been worry evident in his eyes, but something akin to compassion had briefly flashed in his gaze, while lingering on the bandages upon his torso or at least that's what Wildwing thought the 'Shadow' had been looking at.

Kl: "Surely he didn't want you to hear his voice, supposedly out of fear of being recognized by you. So it could've been someone you know. Maybe working at the Pond?" he suggested, erasing the other half of the doughnut from the earth's surface.

W: "I don't think so. I would've remembered meeting someone with yellow eyes." He stated with a voice that left no room for discussion.

Kl: "Yellow eyes? That's totally unknown for a human, you know?"

W: "I don't think a saurian would've helped us get Duke back." He argued.

Kl: "Well, we're going to have to deal that part of information very carefully. What else can you tell me about the 'postman'?" he continued.

W: "He was of average height for a human. I think he was as tall as Nosedive, maybe an inch or two shorter."

Kl: "Average height." He mumbled while scribbling it down in his messy handwriting.

W: "And he 'knew his way around', as Grin pointed out to me. We designed the headquarters especially like they are, because it's architecture is the exact copy of a unique military base back on PuckWorld: confusing for an intruder, but you get used to it after some weeks of ending at dead ends while taking a stroll around the place. And he didn't once turn a wrong corner, while being followed by three trained ducks that should be more familiar with this place than a taxi-driver should be with the streets of Anaheim!"

Kl: "That's another point speaking for the 'postman' being familiar with you. If he knew his way around and didn't speak, if he got in undetected and out without getting caught, and I know how good you are at the matter of fighting on the battle-field and catching bad guys in the process, I saw it last time and it was impressing enough to be remembered! If you agree, I think we should start investigating everyone being involved with planning and building this place, along with the people working all around the Pond."

W: "But why wouldn't they let us know about them? If anyone of them tried to help us, why wouldn't they just tell us?"

Kl: "Are they supposed to know about your 'secret' headquarters underneath the rink?" he asked with a glance to the ceiling, starting to consume another doughnut.

W: "No, not really."

Kl: "It wasn't Phil at any chance?" he joked.

W: "No." He replied moodily, indicating with taking a big gulp of his coffee, that he didn't think the joke to be funny at all.

Kl: "Look, I know you want to find this guy as much as I do, but if you can't tell me anything that's going to be of more help, I really don't know what to do. Wasn't there anything characteristical about the guy? Anything that caught your eye? Anything that was not average? Anything slightly unusual?" he tried to take another doughnut, but the box was empty, leaving him with a lingering craving for more.

W: "Besides the eyes? He was like a blur of shadows, just his eyes stood out more than anything."

Kl: "He could've used some yellow tuned contacts, so that part isn't really helping us."

W: "No, he didn't use contacts. I saw his eyes up close before. They're real. They were telling far too much emotion not to be."

Kl: "Well, in that case we just have to search for 'unknown' and that could be anyone." He concluded.

W: "Sorry. But I told you all I know. He came in, powered up the medical computer, laid Duke down, connected him to the screens, stayed a bit and left the building running from Dive, Mallory and Grin, after being detected by me, while standing in front of the door with his back turned."

Kl: "I know you told me all you can remember about him, but I would still feel a bit more comfortable if I knew who's running around my city, saving ducks. Or even 'duck'-napping them in the first place."

W: "I really don't think he was the one to ducknapp Duke. We've had that discussion within the team and we've all agreed upon that point: he means us no harm." He took a last sip of coffee and held the now empty mug between his hands.

Kl: "We should leave the matter for now. After all, you say he did nothing harmful, intended or not, besides breaking into the Pond of course."

W: "Yes, maybe we really should leave the matter for now." He agreed beaten by logic. He still wanted to find and talk to the 'Shadow', but with even the Captain wanting to end the interrogation he wouldn't argue anymore. But he himself wouldn't leave the case unsolved, that was for sure.

Well, that's it again!

Last time I mentioned Captain Klegghorn at the end of the Chapter and the image that got across wasn't too good for him, so I've decided to show you another side of him! The side of his character he just shows to 'equals', in which his strict policemen-mask slips a bit and reveals that he really cares for the worries of his friends and somehow Wing managed to get onto that list. And of course I just had to bring in his bad habit of eating doughnuts while 'at work'! You still remember the first episode, don't you? The one in which he took Phil to his office in the police department and Phil tells him the story of the Mighty Ducks escape from PuckWorld...anyway he was eating doughnuts again...and hotdogs! I totally forgot about them! But I believe I'm just too lazy to put them into the Chapter now...I'll save them for another one, 'k?

Ciao

Dendey


	9. Chapter 9

Well, here I am again!

**_I was resurrected from the dead to torture you with this Chapter!_**

And I'm really sorry you had to wait for it so long, but I got some kind of writers block after the first part, then another one (but shorter that time) and then it just came to me as if there'd never been anything like a writers block at all! (I know I'm strange, but you should've figured that out by now...)

You may not believe it, but Ive finished this chapter three days ago and forgot to post it! I am **_so _**sorry! But now, I finally remembered! Silly me, I know...

And again **_THANKS!_** go to:

_SaphireCatElf:_ Well, thanks for the approval of my fast update. (yes you read correct, 'cause last time I really updated faster then two weeks...)

Well, you'll really have to wait to learn more about the Shadow, I'm planning on revealing his personality in a few (let's say...ten?) Chapters. For now you'll just have to settle with a person helping the Ducks, while efficiently hiding himself from them at the same time. But now, please enjoy the new plot-twist my mind came up with!

**WARNING**: Cliffhanger! At the end of it! Normally I wouldn't do that to you, but this time I'm anticipating your reaction towards the general idea of the last bit of information in this Chapter, so I decided to try out something new. Who knows if it's gonna work the way I want it to?

**CHAPTER 9**:

He slowly opened his eye, adjusting to the bright light with furious blinking. _Where am I?_ He heard noise. It was a strange noise, strange but familiar. It sounded like screaming.

M: "NOSEDIVE!" she hollered throughout the Pond.

The door swished to the side and frantic footsteps approached him, a blur of white and green rushed by and he still had no idea what was going on.

T: "Nosedive!" the normally calm voice of the mechanic snapped. "What are you doing in here?"

N: "Well, what about hiding from Mallory?"

T: "And why in here?" she definitely sounded stressed.

N: "'Cause she's out there?" he tried.

T: "Your endangering Duke's health! He needs his rest!" she reprimanded the teenager. "Go and hide in Wildwing's room, if you have to, but your going to leave this instant!"

_Dive...Who's...DIVE!_ suddenly he knew very well just who Dive was. If Dive was hiding from Mallory again, like every few days, then he needed to protect the kid from her wrath. He tried to rasp out that he wanted him to stay, but only succeeded to get the shortened version of his name to pass his beak.

D: "...Dive..." His soft whisper was carried throughout the room and even managed to reach Tanya's ears.

N&T: "DUKE!" he heard two voices scream at him. One sounded relieved, the other between worry and astonishment.

T: "I'm going to tell Wildwing that you finally woke up!" now she sounded glad and delighted.

N: "I'll stay with him." He offered needlessly, as the door had closed one moment prior to this statement. "You wanna drink something?" he asked the elder solicitous. After a curt nod he complied without another word and instantly purred Duke a glass of water.

Not even two minutes later the whole team was assembled in the infirmary.

W: "How do you feel?" he asked compassionately. He'd been up for the majority of the last days, getting nearly no sleep and looking like it didn't really make him more attractive, but Duke still felt glad to see him.

D: "...better..." he croaked.

T: "Maybe you shouldn't be talking too much. You know, with your current condition you really should take things very slowly for the next weeks." She was instantly back in her feared 'nurse-mode'.

D: "...no 'k..."

N: "You really don't have to talk to us at all, you know I can talk for the both of us." He assured.

M: "WHAT? You want to talk twice as much as you already do? Someone save us..."

W: "Good transition, by the way. Duke who did save you?"

D: "...dunno...don' 'member much..." he slurred.

W: "Duke you know I wouldn't prompt if it wasn't important, but we need to know."

M: "Was it this shadow creature? I just knew we couldn't trust it!"

W: "Mallory!" he warned. "We agreed upon that point didn't we?"

G: "Don't take your anger out on the wrong person. Your action might backfire and next time you'd be the wrong person someone would get his anger out on."

The female duck just grumbled something into her nonexistent beard and went silent.

W: "Can you at least try? Or do you know who duck napped you?"

D: "...Wraith..." he breathed.

N: "I'm gonna smash this slimy saurian scum!" he raged while kicking an infirmary bed, it did went off balance and nearly fell to the floor, but Grin managed to catch it just the second it went off balance, so Nosedive earned himself stern looks from Tanya and Mallory, accompanied by Wildwing, requesting him to use better language. Duke tried to stay awake for a bit longer, but felt too week to resist the urge to fall asleep again. Wildwing noticed Duke's eyelid dropping down and his comrades breathing even out, so he reached a decision.

W: "We'll better let you sleep now." With that he got up to leave and was joined by the rest of the team.

It had been a week since Duke woke up for the first time and he was already allowed to take little strolls around the Pond. As Duke had been unconscious for nearly three days Wildwing was always complaining that he hadn't been allowed out of bed that early, but as Tanya just ignored him after the second time he voiced his opinion he was starting to drop the subject. There hadn't been an alarm so far, so their aggressions against the saurians were building up inside them.

Nosedive was the first to crack. He started a fit in the middle of practice, yelling and punching at their reserve goalie, because he'd let every puck Nosedive had shot through. Grin stopped him after he landed two punches and Phil made sure that he couldn't make it public knowledge, but Nosedive still received a five hour lasting tirade from Wildwing for loosing control. He'd nearly scared off their new center reserve, but Mallory and Tanya explained the situation to the guy and he seemed to be really accepting of the fact. Even going as far as supporting Dive's fury, just criticizing that he'd gotten his fists upon the wrong person.

Their next games went rather well as they'd found a new reserve goalie, the last of the threesome after their nine hours and twenty-seven minutes tryout more than a week ago. After some practice he got along well with the team, blocking some really good shots Dive did.

The following weeks went flawless, there were some alarms, but nothing major so the Ducks managed to get their aggressions out on the saurians, while they crushed their seemingly not so intimidating plans. At least that's how Wildwing was putting it, because he really couldn't see the possible threat of a warehouse full of different coffee machines. He'd even started to head out with them again as the saurians didn't seem to be likely to pull something really dangerous any time soon. This time they headed off with the Aerowing, towards the mountains, where they presumed the new location of the Raptor to be and as Duke was recovering admiringly well Tanya allowed that he too could join them on their trip. Of course Duke wasn't one to turn the offer of maybe 'a little revenge' down, so it was the whole team that landed in the middle of nowhere.

T: "That's strange..."

W: "What's strange, Tanya?"

T: "Well, the signal is still there, right here in this valley, but the gauges can't pick up a heat signal in this area that would match the one of the Raptor."

W: "I'll scan it with the mask." He announced, doing as he'd predicted.

He really couldn't pick up anything replacing the signals of the Raptor, so he wanted to turn off the mask again, but at just that moment the mask picked up another signal. It wasn't related to anything he knew, so he sent the dates directly to Drake One, while telling Tanya she should await a retaliation from his search request.

Tanya was confused at first, but when she looked over the screen at what Drake One had come up with, realization instantly crossed her features just to be replaced by confusion and then utter amazement. Her eyes gleamed with hope when she faced the others and now it was Wildwing to be confused. _What's up?_ he wondered, but decided that he wouldn't be the one to ask. Finally Nosedive got impatient and did exactly what Wildwing refused to.

N: "Well, what's up Tawn?" he asked while tapping with his boot on the floor.

T: "There seems to be another signal."

N: "I think we knew that much already." he informed her grumpily.

T: "Oh, you knew someone created another mask?"


	10. Chapter 10

Hello again!

This one took me some time, I know...but I got distracted in the middle of the Chapter! There was a nagging feeling in my head that I might've forgotten something rather important in the last Chapter, apparently I found 'the things forgotten' and worked them out, but that left me with another situation and I wanted to keep to the old plot, so all of this was kinda...fused into this Chapter, while still fulfilling the old plot. Believe me if I tell you that it was a lot of work within little time, so please bear with the shortness of the result... I'll try to make the next Chapter a bit longer, ok? Besides, I already tried to post this yesterday, but just wouldn't agree with me, so you get to read it today, sorry, but it really wasn't my fault, this time°!

And here they go! **_THANKS! _**to my lovely Reviewer (Yes, you got that right! Plural! There's more than one person out there who's reading and commenting this!)

_SaphireCatElf:_ You thought the last one to be good? In that case I think you'll like this one as well! To be honest I've been playing around with the idea of another mask for months. I just couldn't get around to write it down. It was swirling through my head and as I'm always wondering what special ability would be the best one for the new mask, maybe you should suggest one? Just think about it, if you don't want to that's ok as well, but I'd be interesting what you'd come up with! Thanks again for putting up with me and my story!

_**AND**_

_Angel362:_ You're back! I don't believe it! You've been waiting for me to continue? Sorry, 'bout that one but I was kinda busy...sorry again! ° Well, you think it's great? I think I can live with the thought of someone appreciating my work, because sometimes it really takes me hours before I think that it's human enough to be read. (meaning: I have to eliminate spelling and grammar mistakes. All on my own! Poor me...) It's really a comforting thought that I didn't scare you away with writing something you didn't like (maybe like ... the third Chapter?) But now I know you're still out there I'll try to double my efforts, as there are now two times of readers!

I think I wont keep it from you any longer now, have fun!

_**CHAPTER 10: **_

N: "WHAT? ANOTHER ONE! IT'S GONNA BE MINE!" he squealed, racing out of the Aerowing to retrieve it.

The others eyed each other warily, not really knowing what to do now and not really appreciating of the idea at all.

W: "Don't worry, he doesn't really know where to look for it and besides, we'll have to test how it works and if it's save first. After we found out what exactly it **is** doing, if it is doing anything at all, we'll decide what to do with it." He announced and went to join his brother, who had stopped at the feet of the ramp as he had no idea where to go from there.

Wildwing and Nosedive walked through the valley, Wildwing heading straight for the signal his mask picked up and Nosedive just running ahead into the general direction. When the valley began to pick up again Wildwing tried to determine the location of the signals source more accurately. According to the mask their position was still 128 feet above and some 427 feet away. _But that would be in the middle of the rock!_

W: "Nosedive! Wait a mo'!"

His little brother instantly halted in his motions, resulting in a heap of clothes and a white mallard lying on the grass. He scrambled to his feet again and bowed low to his brother.

N: "You called?"

W: "Yes, I did. I think we'll have to look for a cave in this mountain and if we don't find one we'll have to make one."

N: "Or look on the other side of the mountain." He retaliated while standing up straight again.

Grudgingly Wildwing had to admit that his brothers idea hadn't been that bad, especially if he cared to consider that there was no cave opening on this side of the mountain. He decided that they would have to take the Aerowing to fly over the mountain to search the other side of it. They made their way back to the others and were just about to board the Aerowing when the ground under their feet suddenly began to tremble. One of the surrounding mountain tops began to shake violently, reminding Wildwing of the first time they had found the Raptor on earth, disguised to look like a part of a mountain. He yelled for Nosedive to get into the Aerowing and commanded Tanya to retract the ramp while taking off. He flung himself against the door and was helped by Grin, so Duke could lock it, but before Duke could finish his task they were hit by a shot of the Raptors lasers. The force of the shot threw them off of the door and into the opposite wall of the Aerowing, except Wildwing. He still clung to the door, but as it wasn't locked it swung open when Nosedive readjusted the Aerowing to a horizontal position. This resulted in Wildwing clinging to the door handle, he held onto it with all his might, but with the constant fire the Raptor had opened onto the Aerowing Dive couldn't hold the machine as still as he needed to for Wildwing to manage to climb in again. Dive wanted to hide behind a mountain top, so the lasers of the Raptor wouldn't be able to reach them, there he could stabilize the Aerowing again and they could get Wing back into it. The mountain top shielded the Aerowing from the lasers, just as planned, but the lasers shot the rock into pieces, which hadn't been planned like that at all, because one of the pieces headed straight for Wildwing and took him to the ground, while throwing the Aerowing off balance so badly, they nearly crashed into one of the mountains.

Wildwing was aware of the rock rushing towards him and he knew that it wasn't the sort of rock that wouldn't hurt, too bad at least. After living with a rock on the team for years he knew a rock that would hurt when he saw one and this one definitely did look as if it intended to hurt him, it wouldn't cause him mortal damage, at least he hoped so, but he still wasn't exactly eager to meet it, or be met for that matter. So he leapt aside at the last possible moment and 'landed' on top of another rock, a bigger one, that flew just five feet below the Aerowing and had been nearly unrecognizable in all the dust floating around, but it would probably help him to get to the ground with just some scratches and lost feathers. Wildwing at least hoped that it would soften his landing somewhat, because his body wouldn't survive to crash down from at least fifty feet of free-fall.

Suddenly something much more unexpected happened, with a boost of energy the Raptor took off and chased the Aerowing away. Dragaunus hadn't realized that Wildwing had been separated from his team as his view of the Aerowing had been clouded with pieces of rock and dust, but the saurian knew that their new energy supply wouldn't last long, so he wanted to strike as fast as he could, by taking them out while in the air and maneuvering like they were drunk. He chased them while shooting everything he had at them, but to no avail, somehow the pilot had sobered up instantly and avoided every blast he sent at them.

Ch: "Do you think we will get the duckies this time, oh Lord of all Lords?" the Chameleon asked slyly.

Dr: "This time..." he growled and some steam came floating out of his nostrils, when he sent Chameleon flying into the next drone passing them.

Wr: "Of course the genius plan of our almighty leader will succeed you imbecile!"

Dr: "Why, of course! All my plans succeed!"

Ch: "At least in his dreams..." he grumbled to himself.

Dr: "What was that?" he asked him with a threatening low voice, while advancing slowly.

Ch: "Nothing, your Highness!" he tried to assure the angry looking saurian in front of him and surprisingly seemed to succeed.

Dr: "I hope so, for your sake. You should know by now, that I don't tolerate any back talking." He turned and walked back to the controls, scanning the gauges to know how long their energy supply would last.

Wr: "You are by far too generous, my Lord." He complimented while bowing deeply. "May I ask for the source of your sudden calmness?"

Dr: "Are you implying that I am not always calm and collected, Wraith?" he asked him sharply.

Wr: "Not necessarily. It just seemed to me as if you've been in a rather good mood for the past days."

Dr: "An excellent observation, Wraith. But as you wouldn't understand the reason for it, I won't even bother to try to explain it to your simple minds."

Wr: "Of course not." He bowed deeply and retreated into the shadows of the room.

Ch: "What? Not even our ancient spell player would understand the reason. My, my and I thought Siege had no intelligence whatsoever..." he chuckled mockingly and earned himself a burned tail.

M: "NOSEDIVE! CAN'T YOU HOLD THIS DAMNED THING STRAIGHT FOR JUST A SECOND?" she screamed nearly panicked. She hated it when Nosedive was flying but he was decidedly the best pilot on their team. Apart from Mallory herself, of course.

N: "BUT OF COURSE, MAL-MAL! I JUST LOST MY BROTHER ON PURPOUSE, DIDN'T I!" he quaked out, then burst into uncontrollable sobs and navigated the Aerowing through the laser blasts, while the others noticed that tears were streaming out of his eyes and that he could barely hold himself together enough so as not to collapse. Duke managed to get to the front of the Aerowing and pulled Dive out of the 'drivers'-seat while Tanya temporarily took over, just to have Mallory slide into the seat seconds afterwards. Duke tried to soothe the drake in his arms, but to no avail, it seemed as if the teenager was totally out of it. Duke knew that Wildwing was everything Dive had left. Their parents had died within the first three days of the saurian invasion and Dive's world had shattered, but Wildwing had managed to hold on to his brother, piecing him together until he was once again the carefree teenager all of them had learned to love. Some more so than others, but all of them definitely preferred the comic-freak over this sobbing heap of feathers. It was crystal clear to him that Dive was mourning his older brother already and a part of Duke himself was mourning with him.

Dragaunus was getting more and more frustrated by the second. They just couldn't seem to hit the Aerowing, no matter what.

Dr: "SIEGE! DO SOMETHING!" he thundered throughout the Raptor, so the orange saurian in the machine room would hear him, but the lasers kept missing their target and when their energy was nearly gone again Dragaunus had to let the Aerowing escape. They flew some miles into another direction, nearly opposite to the one the Aerowing had taken and disguised the Raptor as a little farm.

For anyone who didn't get the hint with the rock, it was about Grin, because he can be as silent, unmoving and effectively 'hiding' from the rest of the world just as good as a rock could, if he had the intention to hide himself of course...

I hope you liked the Chapter and if you have an opinion to share and some minutes to spare, I'd be thrilled if you leave me a little Review! As you may have noticed before, it sparks my inspiration!

Ciao

Dendey


	11. Chapter 11

Hello all of you! (Mainly at SaphireCatElf of course as I'm not really sure anyone else's still reading this drop)

Sorry again for the long wait! But well, I finally started to study and now my practical training started as well and so my free time has diminished considerably and that's why I had absolutely no time to write. Add to that that my mother is ill and my father was away because of a continuation of his education (hey that rhymed!) I had to do all the shopping (on Saturdays! As I don't have time on workdays anymore, at least not while the shop's are open and here in Germany there are no 24-hour-shop's...) ! So you see, I am absolutely **NOT** to be blamed. The ones responsible for it are my professors and the bad cold my mother somehow caught herself.

Also this Chapter is really short, just a third of my original chapter-length, but I promise that I'll work to get more of this story typed because the red-string is already in my head and I really just need to write it down. (With the occasional added plot-twists my mind will come up with while my fingers are doing so! promise)

But now I'll end my useless babbling and apologies for the delay to **THANK YOU** for your wonderful review's! (Yes! PLURAL!)

SaphireCatElf: blush I rock? Wow, that's really...wow. I just dunno what else to say.

Well, I thought as your my most faithful reader it would be fitting to give you a special present of sorts to show you how much I appreciate it that you read on and tell me what you think about it. And as the tenth Chapter was some kind of jubilee for me I thought it would fit. Besides your idea is absolutely brilliant and it moves along with my own so well that I'll definitely use it. I won't tell what else I'm going to make the second mask be able to do (wow, what a sentence!), but it's absolutely going to be fun writing the reactions of the ducks to it's abilities.

blushes again sweet? Oh, my...I'm without words again...hehe...But I hope you'll continue to view it as fun to put up with me!

**AND**

Survivor: Tja, dein review wird hier bei zwar nicht aufgeführt werden (hast es mir ja gemailt), aber ich finde es trotzdem angebracht dir dafür zu danken und hier darauf zu antworten. Warum ich das auf Deutsch und nicht auf Englisch mach? Tja, gute Frage. schiefgrins Okay, wechseln wir wieder ins Englische! (Aber nur damit die anderen treuen leser (Elfe zum Bsp.) auch verstehen was hier steht.)

Well, it's hard to explain why I killed Duke's brother Adrian. To be honest I just needed to take away all of his family, for I think it's more likely that he was for one an only child or for the other that the rest of his family is dead. Why I think it's more fitting? Well, I think it suites his character. If you disagree, please inform me! But now I think it's good that you pointed the seemingly missing reason out to me, because I think I'll use it for another plot-twist. eg Not a nice one be sure of it, but hopefully a good one.

The Brotherhood of the Blood will play a really big part in the future and I wanted to introduce it as soon as possible. And as Duke's familiar with the Brotherhood it just fitted perfectly to make him remember something of his past.

Now for the rest of your questions I'll have to watch my tongue, 'cause it wouldn't do to reveal too much.

The builder of the mask and how it came to be on Puckworld (I don't think I implied that it ever was on Puckworld, but your right. It was or will be, I'm not going to tell! But at the moment it's on earth.) are somehow connected to the Shadow and his reasons to help the ducks. Although it answers why he knows his way around the Pond so well. I'm afraid if you really want to get an answer to your questions you'll have to wait until I write the chapters in which these information's are revealed for I really don't want my readers to know everything right away. It wouldn't be as exciting and hopefully captivating if you knew what I'm planning to put into it, so please just be patient and read on, as I'll try to write more soon.

**CHAPTER 11:**

M: "Tanya, can you detect the mask?" she whispered to her co-pilot, so Dive wouldn't hear, but obviously he did because his sobs and tears just increased.

T: "Not from here. I may be able to with Drake One, but I'm not sure."

M: "Then what about his com-unit?" she wanted to know.

Tanya's hands nearly flew over the keyboard while the screen was bombarding her with different information's, but after two minutes she finally looked up, sadly.

T: "There's just static." She breathed with a quivering voice.

D: "In that case I think we should head back to the Pond. Tanya will get the chance to try Drake One and..."

G: "...We will try to calm our spirits. They may guide us in our search, if they are prepared for it."

D: "Yeah, something like that." He agreed.

M: "Affirmative." She mumbled, changing the course and heading straight to their current home, the Anaheim Pond.

Half an hour later they were running through the Pond, their destination: Drake One and hopefully Wildwing's exact location coordinates.

M: "So, where is he? Tell us already!" she demanded from Tanya, but received no reply.

Tanya was typing frantically, but seemingly without any success. She tried everything she could think of to locate Wildwing, but came out of her quest empty-handed. Sighing she turned around to face the others.

T: "It seems like there is something blocking his signal."

D: "I really hate to ask this, but...what could be able to block off his com-unit **and **the mask so completely?" he asked with not exactly a little amount of trepidation.

T: "There is not much. For one, I think, a jamming transmitter would be possible, but rather unlikely considering it's in the middle of the mountains."

M: "It's not that unlikely. The military likes to hide itself and their bases after all and they like the seclusion the mountains provide by being a natural barrier." She interrupted reasoning.

T: "Secondly..." she paused for a little moment, risking a worried look at Nosedive, but decided to continue after his encouraging nod. There was determination shining in his eyes and she knew he'd want to know, even if she knew he'd break down again upon hearing it. "Well, a big amount of different rock layers would have the same effect." She finally whispered.

Tanya had been right with her prediction, Nosedive resumed crying and sobbing into Duke's shoulder and seemed inclined to continue like it for the next few days.

They couldn't calm him down for the life of them all and finally Tanya had to decided to give him a sedative just so he would stop hyperventilating.

After that they put him down to sleep and hoped they'd be able to find a way to track down the source for the disruption of the signal.

Tanya worked overtime, throughout the whole night, but again nothing seemed to work. The next thing she tried was to seclude the potential disruptive factors Drake One picked up from the direction of the mountains. She couldn't exclude them all as there were just to many of them, but she could now confirm Mallory's suspicion of a military base located somewhere in the mountains.


	12. Chapter 12

I'm back! Who would've thought? That's fast now isn't it? You see, today I passed one of my tests for my Praktika, so I'm happy. And when I'm happy I try to spent my energy into something productive: plotting! And of course: writing a new Chapter! So now you finally get one Chapter again. It's the normal length and I'm really anxious as to know what you think about it. My hands are shaking! I'm that nervous! And you know why? No? Well, this Chapter contains the first ever! Conversation with the Shadow! Yes you got it right, a conversation. Like one says something and another one answers to that, so yes the Shadow does talk. But now I'll stop my useless babbling in favor of **THANKS!**

_SaphireCatElf:_ I am really sorry for your loss. I know how it is to loose a loved one, even if I never experienced such a close loss. My condolences.

Yes, I was really mean to Dive last Chapter, but don't worry! You see this Chapter is with Wing! I could never just kill him off so easily, I mean, loosing his grip on the handle of the Aerowing? No, definitely not a preferred way to die, now is it?

Well, thanks again for your encouraging words. You really keep me going! This story would surely not be posted so frequently if you wouldn't Review it. Yes, you had to wait a month for Chapter 11 and it was really short, but this one is longer! And it's with the Shadow! I really hope you like the Shadow's twisted kind of character, I just can't give away too much about him, so he can't give too much away. Understandable isn't it? But now, please just read it! Have fun!

CHAPTER 12:

DREAM

_They were on the Aerowing, following the Raptor through the dimensional portal. He looked his team over once Tanya announced that strange electrical thing was a magnetic worm. It needed to absorb something, but what? Then he made his decision and went to open a side door leading out of the Aerowing. When he opened it there was a rush of air getting inside the Aerowing, then the air tried to pull him out as if it'd read his mind and knew of his decision. He took a step closer to the door, but was suddenly held back by Wildwing. The Mask grew warm around his beak when he looked at Wildwing, he'd noticed it before, but he'd been putting it down to being his imagination. Wildwing was his best friend and had been so since his early childhood, of course he was always glad to see him, but maybe it wasn't just him. Somehow, strangely enough, he almost thought the mask liked to see Wildwing too. Maybe it tried to tell Canard something, something important. Of course, he was about to do something really drastic and the mask knew that, but then it hit him. The Mask! It would have to stay. He couldn't take it with him, even if he was the Team-Captain, which lead him to another thought. His team would need a new Captain. Yes. he thought I agree with you. So he took off the mask and handed it over to Wildwing, declaring him to be the new Team-Captain. _

Dream

As suddenly as it had started, his dream ended and Wildwing was sure he felt himself return to full awareness. He hadn't dreamed about Canard for quite some time now, but this dream had been something new. It had been out of Canard's perspective and that scared him a great deal. Maybe he was going mental? I'm just a little bit stressed, that has to be it. he decided.

He slowly opened his eyes to determine where he was, but found himself surrounded by darkness. It can't be night already, now can it? Wildwing thought but couldn't really be sure of anything. He just remembered himself 'landing' on a big rock and falling down on top of it, but everything afterwards was not available to his mind.

He carefully sat up, but halted in his motions when he felt a sharp pain cutting through his right leg. Great! I broke my leg. So much for standing up and walking around to find out where I am. He briefly closed his eyes again and lowered himself back to the ground. Time for plan B. he thought wryly, wondering if he had even **had** a plan A.

Soft footsteps disturbed his musings and he could see a bizarre shadow moving along a wall heading towards him. So I'm in some kind of cave. he concluded. Wildwing closed his eyes again when the movements stopped and he could hear breathing. Ok, possibility number one, the cave is just really tiny, so that's why I hear his breathing or he's just standing right in front of me. he wasn't really sure which one he preferred, but assumed that the first one wouldn't be too bad. He felt a hand carefully prodding his leg and couldn't repress a hiss when the hand got too close to the broken part of his leg. He felt a look on himself and didn't even try to repress the urge to look back, he just did to encounter concerned yellow eyes. A thoughtful frown passed the yellow orbs and Wildwing was astonished just how much emotion those eyes showed.

S: "You shouldn't move that leg." Was whispered and before Wildwing could study his face he turned away from him.

W: "I don't intend to." He mumbled, which was met by a chuckle. "Thanks." that stopped the chuckling and the up and down it caused for the Shadow's back. "I'm Wildwing Flashblade. Nice to meet you." He introduced himself. He wasn't really sure why he whispered but he assumed that he just didn't want to disturb the quiet of the cave, as he could hear the rain outside hitting the ground.

S: "I know." Was the only reply he got.

W: "Is there a storm going on outside?" he asked. Great Wing! The weather! Your actually talking about the weather with him! he mentally scolded himself.

The Shadow just nodded his head and seemed to listen to the rain.

W: "You're not that much a talker, right?"

A head was shaken.

W: "You don't mind if I talk, do you?"

And again he just shook his head.

W: "Thanks. I tend to talk just to keep myself calm. For starters I could start to ease my conscience with thanking you again. You might be wondering what I'm thanking you for, well this time I thank you for bringing Duke back home and acting like a first aid kit for him. Tanya had to do almost nothing to patch him up, just add a pint of stored blood to his system. Secondly I need to thank you for saving Dive and Tanya. I really don't know how you managed it to rob Tanya off her Omni-Tool as she always carries it around with her, but thanks. And I think I may never know how you got Dive out of that building, but thanks again. Of course you did more than just that for us, especially for me. You've saved my life. Twice. You picked me up after Dragaunus threw me through that wall, he would've broken my neck for sure that time as he was in a pretty bad mood that day. And now, now I don't even know what you did." He admitted.

S: "Nothing. It's nothing, really. You're welcome." Was heard before the Shadow got up to leave the cave again.

Wildwing didn't even try to stop him as it seemed that he had to think about what he'd said. Maybe he was even considering to tell him who he was? Probably not. I surely wouldn't. Then he got his hopes up as the Shadow turned around briefly and he was met by a yellow gaze again.

S: "You should try to rest. Your exhausted, even if you slept for most of the past 24 hours." With that he finally disappeared out into the rain.

It continued that way for the next hours, the Shadow was on some kind of lookout, or so Wildwing thought, and Wildwing himself was just lying there and thinking about sleep, which didn't come. He wasn't lying on the bare stone ground, but on some kind of makeshift mattress made out of a long black leather coat covering some straw. Why are we hiding anyway? Dragaunus can't be that close and surely he'd be able to contact the others somehow, maybe a phone call to Phil would work? Wildwing definitely didn't like it to do nothing at all, but he had no choice. When the Shadow got back after another two or three hours he initiated a conversation.

W: "Why are we hiding?" he just asked, seemingly out of the blue.

S: "Not why, but from whom?" he corrected.

W: "Okay, from whom are you hiding?" he rephrased his question.

S: "No one in particular."

W: "And why do you keep avoiding me?" He'd noticed that the Shadow never stayed long or looked him into the eye, he barely ever faced him. Normally that wouldn't bother Wildwing as he had the mask and could just scan him with it if he wanted to, but strangely enough it seemed like betrayal to him. After all the Shadow trusted him, in his own strange kind of way, but he did none the less. So Wildwing didn't use the mask and on the other hand, he wasn't really sure what the other knew about the mask's powers and if he knew nothing like the rest of their fans, he wanted to keep it that way for as long as possible. "I'm sure that I don't know you and I'm sure that your helping us. The only thing I don't get is: Why are you avoiding us at any costs?"

S: "You wouldn't understand." And with that he was left alone again.

W: "TRY ME!" he shouted, but received no reply. "I would try. You know I would at least try to understand you." He muttered to himself, but heard the sigh coming from right in front of him.

S: "I know you'd try. And it's not as if I don't trust you, but it would be too dangerous for you to know. Just trust me that it's better this way."

W: "How can you say that when you don't even consider telling me? That way, you'll never know if I'd understand or not."


	13. Chapter 13

**SURPRISE! **This Chapter exists!

First I thought about skipping number 13, but I decided against that as I'm not that superstitious. I just put something 'bad' into the Chapter. This is a faster update than I thought I would be able to, so consider it your early chistmas present!

**Legend:**

You may have noticed that doesn't really cooperate with me and I just realized that. But I fixed the problem for this Chaper and will do so for the past ones as well! Now you'll know it when you're reading someone's thoughts! It will be like this /.../ and it will be in italics, so you'll know for sure.

Now **THANK YOU **so much for the lovely Reviews!

_SaphireCatElf:_ Of course I give a darn! Honestly! I care about my reviewers (and friendly people in general, but let's not mention that or the animals...)

You liked the last? Well I hope you like this one as well, as it's with the Shadow again and a long discussion, even if it seems a bit melancholic to me, between him and Wildwing, about what? Hiding, obviously! Thanks again for your encouraging words, it really means something to me that you care to leave me a little note about how I got the (non-existant) message across. hugs

**AND**

_Survivor: _Thanks sooooooo much for your Review and the guessing-chat! It was real fun leading you along through the complete mess of my twisted mind!

I think this Chapter will raise some new questions and answer some about the characters pasts, even if nobody ever asked them. Well, you know I'd love to tell you all about the Shadow's plan, what he has in store for Wildwing and so on, but it would completely ruin the effect of surprise so I can't tell ya.

Well Elf mentioned it and now you mention it, I think I really should consider joining a rock band! How about one called 'The rocking Shadow'? No I'm definitely not going to turn him into a rock star promise, but he will be known.

**CHAPTER 13:**

S: "Maybe I should rephrase that. It's not really a matter of understanding, but more a matter of accepting." he mused to himself.

W: "Of accepting what?"

S: "That I have a past."

W: "Big surprise there. You know, I think I also have a past and I'm not trying to hide myself away."

S: "Who would you hide from?"

W: "Err..." he was at a loss for words.

S: "Think about it, think it through and try to think very careful. We'll continue this another time, ok?" with that he left again.

/_He's so damned confusing!_/ Wildwing thought to himself, but did as the Shadow had asked anyway and came up with some pretty good options.

W: "Grin." He stated an hour later.

Yellow eyes looked at him with confusion, then understanding and finally something akin to pride.

S: "You figured it out. How?"

W: "He's attentive enough to his surroundings to notice something's up and he's sensitive enough to guess the right reason."

S: "Sure, but don't you think it would be difficult to hide from him?" he asked.

W: "Not at all, as he keeps to himself most of the time."

S: "And you think the rest of your team wouldn't notice?"

W: "Of course they would." He defended them.

S: "And therein lies the problem. You'd have to hide from your whole team if you wanted to keep a secret from them. But by hiding yourself you would alert them to yourself and they'd try to watch your every move. Effectively making you unable to hide anything."

W: "So, what would be the solution?" he wondered.

S: "You'd have to hide it obviously."

W: "We agreed upon that beforehand, didn't we?"

S: "We agreed to hiding, but not doing so in broad daylight."

W: "That would hardly count as hiding." He muttered after he finally caught on.

S: "It is the perfect hiding. If you don't change your behavior to the rest of the world, it can't get suspicious. And without anyone being suspicious of you, no one will care to figure out what's wrong with you, because to them, nothing is off with your behavior, because you act the same as always around them."

W: "Well, that sounds all well and good, but you can't tell me that you live in a cave on a day to day basis." He countered.

S: "Sometimes." The smile was heard in his voice, even if it was just a whisper.

W: "Don't you have a family and friends missing you when you just disappear to a cave for obvious hiding?"

S: "Family? Yes, there are some certain persons I would count as such, but we're not related and they don't even live that close. Friends? They know me. They take me for who I am, accepting my quirks and that is what friends do."

W: "How old are you? You seem so mature, having an answer for everything." He muttered unintentionally, as he'd only wanted to think that.

S: "I've been through a lot and in the process I matured far beyond my physical age."

W: "Haven't we all?" he wondered off, staring into space and thinking about his past. Mostly about the time at which Dragaunus took over PuckWorld. That thought automatically led him to his team. Duke had been a thief, so he'd been through a lot as well, Grin had had a rather difficult childhood, even if he never exactly talked about it, Wildwing could read the signs. He'd learned to read them because of Canard. Canard had had a very difficult childhood as well and he'd often talked about his hard times with Wildwing as he seemed to be the only one who understood him somewhat. Mallory was brought up by the military, so she always had to follow strict rules, she could cope with a lot of things, because she could effectively shut out her emotions, something for which Wildwing often found himself pitying her. Tanya...he suddenly realized that he knew nearly nothing about her past. He'd have to find out soon, after all they'd been living together for the past two years and he still knew nearly nothing about her past.

He snapped out of his daze when he felt a cold rush of air entering the cave, rustling his feathers in the process. He noticed that the Shadow had left again. /_Not the most social person, are we?_/ Feeling tired and exhausted from doing nothing but working over the different pasts of his comrades in his mind, he laid down and instantly fell asleep.

_DREAM_

_He opened his eyes to a foreign place. He knew he'd never been here before, but his body moved with determination, even if it felt slightly different, but as this was supposed to be a dream, Wildwing didn't dwell on it. He ran down a corridor and turned to the right to burst through the third door on the left. _

"_EVACUATE THE HEADQUATERS!" he shouted into the shocked faces of the Generals. He didn't care that he'd disturbed their meeting, they needed to leave. The seventeen drakes positioned around the table hastily gathered their stacks of paper and piled out of the room, turning to the right and then to the left. They took exactly the same way out he came in. He went into the room and checked if they hadn't left anything behind, apparently they didn't, so he just saved the whole data's of the computer on some disks. After that he took the computer apart within one minute and burned it, so the metal melted and the data's would surely be destroyed. Quickly he scooted out of the meeting room, thankfully the only one with a computer that wasn't connected to their main computer and left the building. The meeting room had been in the cellar of an office block, but just as he turned around the corner he heard the explosives going off and the building went down into a pile of dirty rocks, surrounded by a cloud of dust. _

"_You okay?" asked a deep voice form behind him, whilst a strong hand tucked him into the shadows of the next alley and concerned eyes swept up and down his body. _

"_That was the third time this month." He grumbled, ignoring the question. _

"_You didn't answer my question, though you are right. It's been awfully frequent for the past months." The deep voice said while walking through the shadows and along the street with him. _

"_I'm okay."_

"_You got everything important out?"_

"_Affirmative, though we might need a new computer for the meetings." He added._

"_That shouldn't be too much of a problem. I'm sure we'll find something suitable." He was assured._

"_Do you think we could have a traitor amongst our numbers?" He finally voiced his worries after struggling for three weeks of finding out if it was important enough to worry the drake walking beside him. He trusted him and he was sure he did the same, but he had a lot he was responsible for and he really didn't want to burden him further as he'd become more a friend than a mentor in the past six months. _

"_I'd give my life willingly and with pride for all of my people." His deep voice stated with conviction. _

"_I don't even trust half of them with my wallet." He admitted, because deep down in his heart he knew it was the truth even if he always tried to trust them, but he just couldn't bring himself to trust as freely as he'd used to before his family was taken away from him. _

"_That's one reason why I've never liked the military."_

"_Not because they always tried to incarcerate you?" he joked._

"_No, after all nobody would want a thief like me on the loose." _

_He really tried to keep a straight face, but when his beak turned up at the corners they both had to laugh._

_DREAM END_

/_Now that was strange_./ Wildwing thought, waking up in the middle of the night, but he thought nothing of it, he was just too tired to care right now, so he just turned onto his side and went back to sleep.


	14. Chapter 14

Hello again and I wish all of you a very **HAPPY NEW YEAR**!

I am really sorry I couldn't post this chapter last year, but I just finished it today...there was just a tiny little first paragraph of the Memory done at Sylvester and I really didn't want to interrupt the Memory just to be able to post part of this Chapter a bit sooner. Besides, university just started again and it's really making my day (like, planning all of my free time away to be used for homework...)

**THANK YOU SOOOOOOOO AWEFULLY MUCH FOR YOUR REVIEWS!**

_SaphireCatElf: You liked the dream? Then don't worry, there'll be more! And yes, they do have a meaning and a reason for being there. _

_I think I don't want to not update this story in a month, it's just too much fun to write! And I really don't want this fic to end like my last German attempt at HP...I really have to continue that one...even tried to translate it, but me and English grammar...let's just face the facts...it doesn't like me and when I have a German original it's really been not one of my best ideas to translate it into English the direct way, maybe I should consider writing a story with the same plot but slightly different situations...thinking...I'm sue you don't have such problems with your stories, right?_

**AND**

_Survivor: Sooo, sorry I couldn't finish this last year, but after the first paragraph of the memory I just...well, lost my muse for it...I even considered shortening the memory, so there'd be only a paragraph left of it, but then I read through it today and my muse surprisingly decided, that she's back from her little vacation._

_Thanks for pointing out which part you enjoyed especially. There'll be part of that part to enjoy in this Chapter (though it's a bit hidden...) and in the next one, where I'll make the part of this Chapter, regarding the same topic, known (but you can still guess about it in your Review! You know I like guesswork!) Just for the peace of your mind I didn't let Wing think anything at the end or the whole Chapter for that matter. Please enjoy!_

**AND NOW IT'S LUNCHTIME!**

**CHAPTER 14**:

The next morning Wildwing wasn't even sure if he had dreamed at all that night. The Shadow was missing again, so Wildwing had to occupy himself with thoughts about Dive's and his own childhood. He was surprised by himself when he realized that he hadn't done that in quite some time. Leaning back down with closed eyes he bathed in happy childhood memories of ice-hockey playing Flashblades.

_Memory_

_The puck flew past him and he couldn't help himself to send a retaliating glare back at his father. It was always great when he joined them in their game, but it sometimes infuriated Wildwing to no end that he always scored as he was still too slow to catch his fathers shots. Canards were a completely different matter and Wildwing wasn't really disappointed when he could catch just seven out of fifteen, but his fathers... Maybe it had something to do with the fact that a nine-year-old wasn't exactly expected to catch the shots of a first league scorer like his father, he wasn't too sure about that, but it had definitely something to do with his two-years-old little brother distracting him. Nosedive was a sweet kid, he absolutely couldn't deny that, but he was noisy as well and that's what caught Wing's attention at the most inappropriate moments._

"_Let's call it quits, shall we?" his father suggested. _

_They'd been at it for the past six hours and he'd joined them an hour ago, it was more than enough time for his mother to get dinner ready._

"_Okay." Wildwing agreed reluctantly. _

"_You wanna join us, Canard?" _

_Wildwing was in a far better mood the moment after his father invited his friend to stay with them. He nodded vigorously and was simply delighted when Canard agreed. They collected their equipment, three dozens of pucks or so, and headed inside for dinner. _

"_You always catch just the right moment." His mother smiled warmly from the kitchen._

_Dive meanwhile had watched them collect the pucks, from that he knew they were heading in soon and so he climbed down from the windowsill at which he'd been watching them play. He'd caught a cold three days ago, so their mother didn't allow him to go out with his big brother. As some kind of exchange Wildwing had left him his mask he normally wore while playing the keeper. Mask in hand Nosedive ran towards his brother, through the whole kitchen, and flew his arms around his knees, just to look up at him with a brilliant smile. He'd really missed his brother and hugging him to give him his mask back was his way of showing him just that, because a hug for Nosedive meant giving affection._

"_Missed me?" he asked his brother when he felt him collide with his knees, after he'd put away Canards and his coats._

_Dive just smiled again and held Wing's mask up, so his brother could take it back._

"_Thanks for taking care of it, Dive." He smiled down at his brother._

"_Why isn't he talking?" Canard murmured into his ear, so as not to disturb the kid. He was already used to him babbling away nonsense and his quietness irritated him greatly._

"_The doc said he lost his voice because of the cold." He murmured back, after readjusting the scarf his brother had to wear even indoors. Pulling Dive into a hug and taking him up in a practiced movement, he leaded the way to the dinning table. _

"_He'll get it back though." He assured his friend when they sat down for dinner._

"_I was afraid so." Canard admitted._

_Wildwing just smiled as he was in too much of a good mood to argue with his older friend, that a talking Nosedive wasn't that bad and quite certainly better than the currently silent one._

_Memory end_

Wildwing was still smiling when he got back to reality. The good mood his memory had held lingered inside him and even comforted him a little. He knew his brother was probably worried about him, but right now he wasn't in the mood to head back to the Pond. At the moment he wanted to ask the Shadow some more questions.

S: "Do you want to eat something?" a now familiar whisper asked him.

W: "Sure. What's on the menu today, slugs and ants?" he joked, still having the past lingering at the back of his mind.

S: "No, not this time. Though I could add it onto dinner if you want me to."

W: "What kind of dinner would that be then?" he asked curiously.

S: "Living salad. Complete with aggressive ants and slithering slugs."

W: "Hmm, no. They'd eat the salad and then it would be just the fed up ants and slugs for us. Not something I'd enjoy." He admitted after laughing his head off.

S: "You're probably right with that." He agreed easily and passed Wing their lunch.

W: "Not that I'm suspicious or anything, but as I really can't see a thing in here...mind telling me what it **is** we're having for lunch?" he asked.

S: "No ants and no slugs. Though I really don't know the difference between their IQ and this one's." He stalled time.

S: "It's a chiabata and some fish I caught at dawn." He finally told him after he'd seen Wing look at his food a bit closer, without emanating any sound of recognition.

S: "Tuck in." He advised after Wing had inspected the fish a little more closely.

W: "Okay." He agreed after he decided that the fish smelled good.

W: "What's a chiabata?" he asked curiously after remembering he had no idea what it was.

S: "Some kind of bread." He replied after swallowing down the bite of fish.

After lunch the Shadow cleaned away the dishes he had brought in and left to wash them at the nearby river. Wildwing didn't really do anything, but when he caught a glinting on the floor of the cave, just an arms length away, he carefully scanned it with the mask. Astonished Wildwing discovered it was a photograph and lifted it into his hands for a closer examination. It was a surprising picture, a nice snap shot in a moment of unawareness he supposed, but never the less it was an excellent picture. And most importantly it was of a drake.

He had snow white feathers combined with short blond hair and was lying on a couch of some kind, wearing military boots and a strange looking deep blue bodysuit, it seemed vaguely familiar as it reminded him of the one Duke wore. There was a puckblaster in his left hand, which dangled off of the couch so the weapon seemed to be aimed at the floor and his right hand was draped lazily across his stomach. There was a puckholster strapped to his left thigh and his belt had even more equipment attached to it then he'd ever seen. There were many pouches with no recognizable use and surprisingly there was a sheath attached to the belt as well. Another antiquated thing that caught his eye was the chain around his neck. It was a black chain with jewels intertwined into it, they were all in various shades of yellow and green and alternating shapes of circles, triangles or other things, there was just one jewel, a bilious green one, with a unique shape. From this one, which seemed to be some sort of pendant, the other jewels were placed in pairs of matching color and form until the end of the chain in the drake's neck. His eyes were closed and he seemed to be sleeping, though it seemed to Wildwing as if, even if the image was just an unmoving picture, that when he'd make just the tiniest of sounds the drake would wake up, just to point his puckblaster directly at his heart.


	15. Chapter 15

Wow! I really have to say, my muse did a good thing relaxing in the vacation she took, because as you may guess already, this points down just came to me in a matter of ninety minutes. Unbelievable, isn't it? But I swear it's the truth! So for now, don't expect another update for at least the next week, it might've been just the new keyboard my mother bought me today that intrigued me to write more of this sooner rather than later. So, it would be her you have to thank for!

There is one new thing in this Chapter and that's why I had to invent a new sign. It's a change of scene, unbelievable but true! The first ever jump from one scene toward another in the whole story! Normally the scene would change from Chapter to Chapter, like one Chapter taking place in the Pond (like Chapter 5, where everyone wonders about Duke's whereabouts) and another somewhere else, whereever that might be (like Chapter 6, which actually took place in a holding cell of the Raptor). But as this Chapter is totally different from the others, I had to add a new sign (I think I might be I'm repeating myself...) this one!

Legend

**scene change**

(not the most creative, I know, but hopefully it'll be recognizable enough.)

NOW! THANKS! For my lovely Reviewer!

_SaphireCatElf:_ YOU GOT IT! But there wont be much more of him for the next few Chapters, don't worry he'll definitely make his appearance, but before that, the great mystery about the Shadow will have to be lifted, at least partly eg.

In this Chapter we, or more like you, will finally find out what happened to our distressed team.

This Chapter is especially for you, my dear! So: Please Enjoy!

CHAPTER 15:

They had searched for their teamcaptain in the mountains for two whole, endless seeming days without finding even the tiniest of traces left behind by a duck, but now they had new hope. New hope they hadn't dare to have, because every time they had gotten their hopes up within the past days it had been smashed an instant later. Once they thought they had finally found Wildwing, just to crawl into a cave to find an angry grizzly at their heels when they ran out of it.

Nosedive was bouncing around the Pond with joy. Tanya had finally managed to take out all of the disruptive factors detering Drake One, after Mallory and Captain Klegghorn had gained the allowance of the local authorities to investigate the area surrounding the military base. They had even been told the current frequencies of all of the disruptive factors, so they could scratch them out of the programms research surces. Tanya had invented a special programm that should be able to pick up any frequence in a radius of a houndred miles. It had taken her a whole day to write it, another one to get to know and scratch out all the frequencies of the local radio stations and tv channels and of course it had taken another day for Mallory and Klegghorn to gain the required permission of the authorities.

But now it was finally time for a first test of the programm and hopefully they'd find his brother at last. He hoped against hope, that Wildwing had survived the three days. Nosedive knew perfectly well, that it was most unlikely for his brother to have survived, but he hadn't gotten onto this team just to have his brother stripped away from him. Because his brother had been the initial reason why he even was a part of this team. Without him, Nosedive knew, he would've never gotten onto the team and to be honest, he now understood Canards reasoning for not wanting him on the team. He was a hot head, lead by emotions and with absolutely no experience on the battlefield. Add to that that he wasn't really one who followed all the orders given to him, he knew perfectly well, that he'd been absolutely unlikely to ever get accepted into the military. Not the best material for a special strike force, but he had proven himself, he knew that too, so if he was honest with himself, he could say that in the end all of it had turned out well for him.

D: "Can we start with that test now, Tanya?" he asked impatiently. After Wildwing was gone they had all been taking orders alternatingly from Mallory or Duke, even from Tanya if she needed them to get her some new components for the 'pointer', as she'd called the new programm.

It was a mashine of it's own, with a screen just a quarter as big as the one of a notebook and four buttons. She had constructed it to be as simple as possible. One button was to power the 'pointer' up or down, another one was to start the search for signals and the last two were to zoom in or out on the map. It worked similar to a radar, it scanned it's surroundings constantly and excluded all known signals. When Tanya connected it to her Onmi-Tool she said she could be able to transmitter the rough boundaries for the range of Wildwing's comm-units possibly still existing signal.

T: "Sure, all should be fi-fi-ready now." She said nervously and pressed the power button. With a sideglance at the expectant faces surrounding her, she closed her own eyes in anticipation and finally pressed the search button. With a steady beeping sound the mashine worked it's way through the signals flowing around the air, continually scratching away known results from the military frequences, tv channels and radio stations of Anaheim. Suddenly it declared the search was finished and showed it's results to the waiting audience.

M: "Well? What it it? Tell us already!" she demanded and finally saw the edges of Tanya's beak turning up before a grin broke out and her watery eyes fixed themselfes on the rest of the team.

T: "There's a signal. Not far away from the valley where we've searched yesterday." She proclaimed in a tearsticken voice, laden with dread, hope and a little excitement.

N: "Then what are we waiting for? LET'S ROCK! DUCKS!" he motivated them, while starting to run for the Aerowing.

**scene change**

S: "May I introduce you to my brother?" came the silent whisper from his left, startling him out of his trance of studying the photograph.

W: "Your brother? So you are from Puckworld?" he concluded surprised.

S: "In a way, yes." He avoided a direct answer.

W: "Are you the older one?" he asked, while thinking of Nosedive. He had no idea what he'd do if he found Nosedive sleeping with a puckblaster in one of his hands, but he definitely wouldn't have thought to take a picture. Maybe afterwards, in retrospec, but not at the time of discovering him like that.

S: "No. He's four years older than I am." He answered the question.

W: "Really? He looks like between seventeen and twenty to me." He stated hesistantly after studying the drakes face a bit more closely.

S: "Actually he was twentyone when that picture was taken." His voice sounded far away, as if he was remembering a past time, long gone for the world.

W: "What happened? I mean, why is he sleeping with a puckblaster at the ready? How can he even sleep while being armed?" he wondered.

S: "We were at war." He stated simply.

W: "Oh." He almost regretted he had even asked.

S: "Dark times can bring out the worst or the best in people." He stated, sounding remarkably like Grin.

W: "I don't know. Dark times always force us to make the hardest decisions, sacrifices have to be made to save others, but when no one is willing to do them, nobody can survive. It's a sad truth, but we all would be dead now if it hadn't been for Canard. We never got the chance to thank him, let alone murn him. I kinda feel ashamed of myself for not thinking about it sooner. I mean, it's been two years already! He can't be still alive, otherwise he would've been able to contact us by now." He rambled.

S: "Do you think he would regret his choice, if he knew that all of you are still alive?"

W: "I'm not really sure, but I don't think so. He'd probably be glad we're okay, no matter what. It's not even like we never tried to get him back. We waited for him, actually, I'm still waiting..." he admitted. His whispered words felt to him like he'd shouted them into the cave. They seemed to be bouncing back off the walls surrounding him, haunting him, daring him to wait, to hope again for something he knew might never happen, Canards return.

S: "Fate is a bitch, you know?" he asked quietly, after nearly ten minutes, at precisely the moment at which Wildwing had contemplated to scream the next second, out of dispair for not knowing how to deal with his troubled emotions and regrets considering Canard. He had no idea if Canard had made the right decision, he didn't really feel like a good teamcaptain, all he wanted was to destroy Dragaunus and all his problems would be dealt with once and for all.

W: "Yeah." He sighed.

S: "But there are ways around it." That simple statement gave Wildwing more hope than it should've been able to, but he so desperately wanted to believe it.

W: "What do you mean?" he asked for clarification.

The Shadow stayed silent this time, just rustling around with the fabric of his clothes to pull something out from an inner pocket. He handed Wildwing something wrapped in velvet and Wildwing just **knew** that it had to be the same black velvet in which Duke's saber had been wrapped in.

W: "What's that?"

S: "A way around a fate, that could be nearly avoided."

W: "How so?"

S: "With help at the right moment, important knowledge of that moment and deep trust."

W: "I don't understand."

S: "You don't have to, but maybe someone else will." With that last confusing murmur he left the cave.

W: "WAIT!" he screamed after him. He hadn't asked him all he'd wanted to ask him today and when he heard the sounds of the Aerowing landing nearby, he knew he wouldn't get another chance to ask.

He tried to push himself up from the makeshift bed, but found both of his hands full, one with the velvet package and the other sill held the photograph. He tucked both items into his pouch and scrambled to his feet, a sharp pain in his right leg pulled a hiss of pain out of him and he tried to hop to the exit of the cave. The Shadow, of course, was long gone when he reached it.


	16. Chapter 16

You have absolutely no idea how sorry I am, that it took me so long for this! It's actually shorter than most chapters are, but I hope you wont mind too much...I've just managed to write it when my writersblock was released for two precious hours, since then, four weeks ago, I've re-read this chapter for...I don't know how many times, but today I finally deem it worthy enough to be posted!

Now **THANKS** so much to my lovely **_REVIEWERS_**!

_SaphireCatElf: _

Yup! It actually does have a duck brother! It's great that you find that interesting as I'm hoping to introduce him soon...well you know me...'Dendey' and 'soon' do not really fit into the same sentence, but I will try to make an effort and introduce him in...let's say...twenty or so chapters! How does that sound? Agreeable?

**AND**

_Survivor:_

I do forgive you, though I have to admit that it was indeed strange to miss out on one of your reviews...but still, I do forgive you and am happy to know your back on the ship!

As for the Shadow hiding from the Ducks...(I am evil, I know it and you know it, so why are you asking?)

Well, like it is with happy-ends, it really depends on your point of view. Let me say it this way, if the Ducks are one party and the Saurians are another, then of course one of them will have to fail at the attempt to reach their goal, while the other has to succeed. It's as simple as that, really it is.

Sad? Well, maybe yes, but it really depends...though I assure you that there will also be some happy happenings(wow does that word sound strange in this context...)

**CHAPTER 16:**

Nosedive raced out of the Aerowing, heading for the coordinates to which Tanya's pointer directed them. Duke was hot on his heels, holding the pointer in a death grip for he prayed their leader would be at least halfway all right and so was Mallory, Grin followed them in a slower pace for he'd stated in the Aerowing that he could feel no bad karma around, so Wildwing wasn't in too much trouble. Tanya meanwhile prepared a bed in the back of the Aerowing where she wanted to treat Wilwing's worst injuries before moving him home to the sickbay of the Pond.

Nosedive was by now at least twenty feet in the lead and climbing up towards the, to him unknown, cave entrance. Just as he reached for another, higher rock to pull himself up he saw a slight movement in the corner of his right eye. He automatically turned his head to see a black figure clad into a cloak trying to disappear through a barrier of rocks. Surprisingly he found a spot where the barrier seemed to be penetrable, for he vanished from view. Without thinking Nosedive ran after the figure.

The way, if you could call the assembled bunch of stones a way, was no easy terrain, so Dive had to walk slowly if he wanted to avoid injuries. He stumbled over a rock and nearly into another one, when he finally reached the barrier into which he'd seen the figure disappear. He prodded the stones in front of him for the entrance and found it rather quickly, so he wriggled his way through the stones and into a tunnel of sorts. It seemed like the middle of a tunnel for there was a turn-off to the right and one to the left.

/_A JUNCTION/_ it dawned on Nosedive and he wasted no time to decide to go to the right. Unbeknownst to him, the Shadow had went left and right at the next intersection. But as Dive knew neither of this he turned right again at the next junction, then took the center tunnel and soon he found himself not just lonely and unable to make any contact to the other MightyDucks via their Com-units, but also lost.

After half an hour of running around in the endless labyrinth of tunnels he finally declared himself to have lost any guess about his whereabouts. He was doomed, he didn't know the way out, because he'd forgotten the way in, so he couldn't just go back, but most of all...he had lost the Shadow, again! He'd come to the conclusion that it had been the Shadow, for who else would wander around the mountains in a black coat, which looked pretty warm, when it was a sunny day, with nearly twenty degrees outside?

N: "Okay, if I wanted to hide...where would I go?", he asked the junction in which he sat, propped up against a wall between two tunnels.

He didn't really expect an answer, even if it would've been appreciated, but he wasn't surprised that after his words silence claimed the junction again.

Out of boredom and with no idea where he was going, Nosedive stood up and took a turn to the left, he wasn't even really looking for the exit, he just wanted to keep moving, he told himself. He didn't feel comfortable sitting around doing nothing while he could at least try to get a sense of his whereabouts and of course stumble across an escape route, the unconscious part of his mid hoped.

**scene change**

He squinted his eyes open, not caring that they were oversensitive to sunlight after being in a cave for three days. He was leaning in the cave entrance and now, looking down into a valley and of course the rocks leading up to his position. On the rocks below him he could clearly make out three very familiar figures and behind them, down in the valley, stood the Aerowing. Wildwing was so happy he could've jumped up and down in joy, if it weren't for his right leg neglecting to support his bodyweight.

W: "DUKE!", he called in greeting, happy to see the gray drake again.

D: "Next time, please don't call us as we really weren't worried about you at all!", his natural eye glared up at his leader, while he climbed up the last rock dividing them.

D: "I really hope Dive gave you a considerably big piece of his mind already, for I won't scold you like a four-year-old who ran away, even if you may deserve it. Well, Mallory might, but that's not my business if I don't have to listen." He smiled with an amused glint in his left eye, for the right was still covered with black silk. It was the only material smooth enough not to hurt his skin and dark enough to still protect his vulnerable eye.

W: "Dive?", he questioned confused.

D: "Yeah, unnerving pranking teenage kid, remember? Lil' brother of yours, catching any pucks?", he asked the puckworldian equivalent to the human: ringing any bells.

W: "I haven't seen him yet.", he answered, growing worried.

D: "That's strange, considering he was right in front of me three minutes ago.", he pondered.

M: "Great! Another Flashblade missing! Maybe we should start to celebrate already? It would be heaven if he stayed lost.", she grinned, trying to joke good naturedly.

**scene change**

It felt like hours later that Nosedive finally heard another sound apart from his breathing or his footsteps.

Water. He heard water dripping down from somewhere onto the ground. If there was water, there was a spring and where there was a spring there was a river, he concluded and went in search for the spring. He just followed the sound of the water drops. Soon enough the dripping sound was loud enough so that the spring could've been directly under his beak, but it wasn't there. Instead there was /_THE SHADOW!_/ he screamed in his head and ran after the retreating figure once again. It took him ten more minutes to see his first glimpse of daylight, for which he was eternally grateful. He darted to the exit of the tunnel labyrinth and found a disk lying on top of a rock, right in front of him. Cautiously Nosedive retrieved it from the ground and looked around for his teammates.

If you wanna know what's on the disk...you're very much invited to take a guess...maybe I'll even take it into the story! You know how much I love your advice, so please do share it with me!

Yours

Dendey


	17. Chapter 17

Guess who's back! RIGHTEO! I AM! See? You just can't seem to be able to get rid of me XP!

Soo, why did it take me so long to do another chapsy? Well, may I suggest 'writersblock' for the most hated word of the year? What? You agree? Fabulous! Writersblock it is! The most hated word of the year 2006! Congratulations to whomever invented the word XD!

Now, back to the task at hand, a new chapter, but before you get the new chapter, my faithful reviewer get's my **_THANKS_**!

_SaphireCatElf:_

_I truly hope that you find this chapter to be as interesting as the last, even if this one actually might just be a tidbit more confusing than the last! XD But now please read it and tell me! I just can't wait to know what you think about it!_

**CHAPTER 17:**

/_How come Dive always manages to cause trouble without even really trying?_/ Wildwing wondered to himself.

They'd made their way back down to the Aerowing, Duke had to support Wildwing so much he nearly carried him in the end. Grin had seen the both of them struggle down the path, so he'd met them halfway down and just Wildwing from Duke's grasp. Wildwing HAD tried to protest when Grin had just thrown him over his shoulder, but it hadn't really affected the calm duck. He just walked down the path and towards the Aerowing without a care in the world, until they'd reached the Aerowing, where he'd learned about the other Flaschblade brother being amiss. They tried to reach him with the com-units everyone of them had on their wrists, but to no avail. All they got was static. Tanya tried to readjust the pointer to Nosedive's signal, but it take the pointer at least twelve hours to be able to work again.

Immediately turning around after hearing the bad news Grin had walked back up the rocky path that had led them to Wildwing and began searching for the little imp. Searching he old fashioned way: looking, would take longer, he was aware of that, but it might still be faster than the pointer, so someone had to try it and he'd just made himself that someone. Not even two minutes later he was joined by Duke.

D: "Three eyes may see more than two.", he stated distractedly.

G: "A strong minded person will always achieve his goal in the end.", he smiled at his friend.

The hidden compliment wasn't lost on Duke, so he just smiled at the support he got from the other gray duck. He had forgotten just how attentive his mostly silent teammate really was. Grin had instantly picked up on Duke's worry of being useless. He felt even more down than he normally did, because of his missing eye-patch. He felt useless to his team. Before he lost his eye-patch he was at least able to help them out of tight spots from time to time or warn them from hidden dangers only an attentive observer, something a thief simply had to be if he wanted to be good at his job, would've been able to pick up.

Silently they made their way back up the rocks to the cave, looking for hints of anyone using another path in the near vicinity.

**scene change**

Wildwing meanwhile had to lay down on the makeshift examination table. Grudgingly he let Tanya do her work and swallowed the antibiotics without complaint, considering their bitter nearly acidic taste that was a real achievement and show of trust, but Tanya nor Mallory noticed that. Grin and Duke, hell even Dive would have noticed, but the two females were just too worried about him to consider any of this. All they wanted to know was how bad he was hurt, how long he'd have to stay in their little infirmary and how they could get some payback at Dragaunus for hurting their leader.

Tanya was surprised at Wildwings state, he was rather well for having been alone for three days. The small cut's and bruises all over his body were cleaned up, some even partly healed already. What really got to her though was his right leg. He hadn't dared to put too much weight upon it and Tanya had the slight suspicion that it might be broken. In that case it would take at least three months until Wildwing could be allowed back onto the ice and another two months of hard training to get back into battle form. All in all, the earliest she could imagine him being back on the ice and in front of the goal in a real game was in four months time. She didn't truly want to confirm her suspicion of his broken leg, but had to after examining it and FEELING the spot at which the bone had been separated. Wildwing didn't pull a face, even though she knew that her endless prodding must have caused him pain.

T: "I-I'm sorry, Wing, but your leg...", she stated part of her diagnosis.

W: "Is broken. Yeah I knew that much already. What I'm worried about is if you need to fix it surgically.", he interrupted her.

Tanya was a little taken aback at that. Normally Wildwing wasn't the person who just interrupted others, but then again, Dive was amiss at the moment. He had to be worried about his brother and boring him with his current condition, for which he must be cursing himself vehemently because it prevented him from searching for his bro, who had taken an unexpected stroll in the area, was probably not the best idea she'd ever had.

T: "Well, it doesn't tru-tru-really feel as if the bone is that much out-out of-apart.", she tried to soothe at least one of his worries, when suddenly his com went off.

**scene change**

They had found some scratches on a few rocks that led away from the cave and down some other rocks. After climbing down at the left of the cave for what seemed like forever, but was hardly ten minutes they found themselves in front of a beautiful waterfall and a little way down there was a stick that looked suspiciously as if it'd been used as a rod at one point in time.

/_There we are, thinking he can't take care of himself and what has he been up to? Fishing! The badass had the audacity to be calm enough to go fishing as if he didn't have a care in the world to worry about! And what about us? We were sick with worry about his health! We weren't even sure if he was still alive! And the jerk went fishing!_, Duke silently fumed. Opening his com-unit on impulse he snarled an unfriendly greeting to his leader and found himself asking, just out of curiosity if the fish had been at least halfway decent. He had no idea why the idea of Wing calmly fishing made him so unbelievably angry at him, but he discarded his bad conscious which threatened to overtake him at Wildwings disturbed expression. He had been worried and he was damned if he didn't have the right to worry about his friends if he felt like it.

**scene change**

Wildwing instantly picked up his com, but found it unbelievably confusing that Duke would make such a big deal about the fish. So he just told him the first thing that came to mind.

W: "Yeah, the fish was pretty good, even if I have no idea how he did that. By the way, how come you know about the fish we had two days ago?", he asked his own question.

Duke's expression was priceless. He looked as if he was about to pass out.

D: "We?", his timid question sounded weak over the com-link.

He looked at Wing as if he was crazy and that look was exactly what made Wing realize what his friend had to be thinking.

D: "Wing? Have you hit your head somewhere?", he asked cautiously.

Upon this Tanya quickly moved her attentions to Wildwings head, but couldn't find anything that would lead to the suggestion of him having a concussion or worse, suffering memory loss.

W: "No.", he stated firmly, a little put out at the suggestion.

D: "Okay, so who are 'we'?", he wanted to know.

W: "Well, the Shadow took care of me for the past days.", he admitted softly.

M: "ARGH! NOT AGAIN!", she screeched, flailing her arms wildly in the air and storming out of the little makeshift infirmary in the Aerowing.

She needed to calm down, for she really couldn't stand hearing the word 'shadow' just one more time than necessary.

W: "Uhm...guys...what's wrong with her this time?", he inquired.

D: "Nothing besides the usual. So how come you didn't share that tidbit of information before we went searching for Dive? Who knows he could've followed the guy just out of curiosity, if he was lurking around. You know your brother's a hot head and quick with jumping to conclusions."

W: "What are you trying to imply there Duke?", he asked in a dangerously calm voice.

The Shadow had helped him for crying out loud! He wouldn't let anyone even suggest otherwise! They didn't know a damned thing about the guy, so they didn't have a right to judge him! Not even in the slightest! The Shadow was not only peaceful, but helpful and he had been nothing but kind to them.

D: "I'm not trying to imply anything. I'm just stating the facts. You know your brother Wildwing. He's equally as protective as you are when one of us or worse, his own family is concerned.", he reminded their white feathered leader.

W: "I know, Duke. Sorry, I'm afraid I misunderstood you.", he grinned at him wryly.

/_What was that? Did I just try to protect him? He's the one who's doing all the protection for us, I shouldn't feel the need to protect him! Thank him, sure no problem there, but he's pretty capable of looking after himself, right?_, Wildwing had no idea what had gotten into him, but maybe it could be explained away by the photo...the Shadow had a family of his own, yet he'd been with Wildwing instead of his family, looking after him because he was too weak to do it himself. The Shadow was a strange sort of guy, that much was for sure.

D: "Either way, we'll talk about this later, 'k?"

W: "Sure. Have you found any trace of Dive yet?"

D: "No, but I'll let you know the instant we do. How does that sound?"

W: "Sounds like you've got yourself a deal, L'Orange!", he boomed happily.

D: "L'Orange out.", he mumbled after his mock-salute, for which he'd been rewarded with a glare.

**scene change**

Totally confused Nosedive had no idea where he should search for his teammates first. After a sudden strike of genius stray thoughts he simply tried to use his com-unit and was truly surprised to find it working perfectly fine again.


End file.
